6-year-old gifts heart, liver, kidneys, and eyes

NAGPUR: The six-year-old girl (name held back) from Gondia had recently enacted a play on organ donation in her school. Little did anyone know she would bring the sentiment alive shortly afterwards even while losing her life. As she was declared brain-dead at New Era Hospital in city Thursday night, her parents decided to fulfil her wishes. On Friday, her organs gave life to three and vision to two persons.

It included third liver transplant of city after the facility started just six days back and resuted in first twin paediatric (child) kidney transplant on a 14-year-old boy at the

Orange City Hospital and Research Institute

(OCHRI).

Both kidneys went to the same patient as he was suffering from chronic kidney failure from childhood due to a congenital defect. The girl’s eyes were also donated to Mahatme Eye Bank. The heart went to Fortis Hospital in Mumbai. Lungs were also offered nationally but no suitable paediatric recipient was found.

The paediatric kidney transplant was made possible due to organ donation by the girl who died following an accident. Dr

Anup Marar

, medical director OCHRI, told TOI the recipient was a beneficiary from

Western Coalfields Ltd

(WCL), Ghugus, in Chandrapur district. “The transplant could happen only due to special efforts by WCL officials, Dr S Karmakar and Dr Ajaykumar Naik. They cleared the papers in a few hours working late in the night on Thursday after the information on availability of child donor was received by Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee (ZTCC),” said Dr Marar.

Dr

Vibhawari Dani

and Dr Ravi Wankhede, the president and secretary of the ZTCC played a crucial role in coordinating the first ever paediatric transplant. “It is a matter of pride for the city doctors as well as ZTCC,” said Dr Dani.

Dr Anand Sancheti, director of New Era where the donor was admitted for head injury for 8-10 days, said the liver went to an adult recipient in the hospital’s waiting list. He also accompanied the Fortis team to Mumbai.

Dr Rahul Saxena, liver surgeon at New Era, said ideally a paediatric liver should go to a paediatric patient only. Since there was no child recipient for liver in city, it was given to a 40-year-old man. “The blood group, height and weight of the two patients matched,” he said.

The kidney transplant at OCHRI was done by Dr Suhas Salpekar and Dr Sandeep Deshmukh along with Dr

Rohit Gupta

, a vascular surgeon and Dr Deepak Goel, a paediatric surgeon. The anaesthesiologists team at OCHRI included Dr Smita Harkare, Dr Anita Pande and Dr Sweety Pasari.

Dr Kuldeep Sukhdeve, OCHRI paediatrician who led the team, said in children the transplant was a difficult and complicated procedure. “Children are not small adults. Their physical as well as physiological requirements are different. They need separate drug dosage including the medicines like immunosuppressants, electrolyte management etc. The care in PCU also is much different and demanding,” he said.

Dr A J Acharya

, the nephrologist who has been treating the kidney recipient for two years, told TOI the boy was in his seventh standard and first met him in 2009 when he was three years old. “He was found to suffer from Congenital Dysplastic Kidney in which there are problems of development of kidney and the person. The boy had very slow growth, low appetite etc. In this disease, the filtration rate of kidneys is very less. But when the person gets kidneys there is spurt in the growth and hence the person requires both kidneys,” he explained.