Kolkata: Third organ donation in 9 days; new lease of life to 3

Kolkata: A 57-year-old woman, who was declared brain dead at a city hospital, has given a new life to three men in her death. The city saw the third deceased organ donation in a record nine days on Sunday when the woman’s family agreed to donate her organs. The donor’s liver and two kidneys will be retrieved and transplanted into three men. The procedures are expected to go on till the wee hours of Monday. This is the seventh donation in this year so far.

Netaji Nagar resident Shyamali Das, who had suffered an intracranial brain haemorrhage at home, was admitted at RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences (RTIICS) three days ago. When the doctors treating her found that she was brain stem dead, the hospital authorities counselled her family for donating her organs. Once the family agreed, the woman was declared brain dead on Saturday night.

The hospital then informed ROTTO that is responsible for allocating the organs. The woman’s heart, however, was not found fit for transplantation. Doctors assessed her liver, kidneys and lung that were found to be healthy enough for donation. While RTIICS was allowed to retain one kidney and the liver, another kidney was allocated to Command Hospital.

Since there is no lung transplant facility in Kolkata, ROTTO shared the organ with NOTTO. Even as a hospital in Chennai was ready to fly in to take the lung, the retrieval was aborted due to flight timings.
“Delaying the retrieval process would have made it difficult to maintain the other organs. The maximum threshold was 8pm but it was not possible for the Chennai team to reach Kolkata within that period. Waiting longer could have affected the liver and kidneys,” said a source.

The liver and kidney recipients at RTIICS is a 47-year-old male and 33-year-old male. The kidney recipient at Command Hospital is a 32-year-old man. The woman’s cornea was donated to Shankar Nethralaya while her skin has been banked at SSKM Hospital.

This is the third donation in July and incidentally, all the deceased donors are women. On July 9, a Hooghly resident’s two kidneys were transplanted into two patients after she was declared brain dead at Ruby General Hospital. On July 2, another Hooghly resident was declared brain dead at SSKM Hospital. Her two kidneys and liver were transplanted.

“Despite the pandemic, the families of the deceased are agreeing to donate organs and doctors are ready to take up transplant surgeries. And the fact that three donations happened in such a short span of time is absolutely a shot in the arm for organ donation movement. There is a good coordination between private and public hospitals too,” said ROTTO joint director nephrologist Arpita Raychaudhury.