A second chance at life

VADODARA: As many as 81 patients in Vadodara are waiting for organ donors to give them a second chance at life. And the shortage of organ donors has prolonged their suffering forcing them to rely on dialysis.
Data available with two major private hospitals that currently provide kidney and liver transplant facility reveal that 178 transplantations have been done since 2005 when the facility was launched in the city.While the number of such surgeries performed at the two hospitals is encouraging, doctors rue the fact that not many are coming forward to donate organs.
The first kidney transplant in the city was performed at Bhailal Amin General Hospital (BAGH) in 2005. The hospital also performed the first cadaver organ harvest in 2006. Sterling Hospital also began organ transplantation in 2010 and has performed two kidney transplants since then.
"We are definitely seeing a positive trend and it is becoming easier to find donors today. When we began the facility in 2005, we had just a few transplants in a year. Now our average is around 24 kidney transplants in a year," said Dr Mohammad Jawed, medical administrator at BAGH. But he added that there is a huge gap between the number of donors and the number of patients requiring a kidney transplant.
Though there is quite a long waiting list, the hospitals do not have a donor list. "We work on a case to case basis and inform the waiting recipients when we have a donor," said prominent nephrologist Dr Kamlesh Parikh. "In case of live donations, only close family members are legally allowed to donate and cadaver donations happen when we are reported of someone who is brain dead," he added.
"Our team has to deal with questions which are difficult to resolve. Particularly in cases of cadaver donations, recipients have queries regarding the donor's family background and even their caste and religion. We have to then explain it to them that these are secondary to the medical condition that they are suffering from," Pramod Bhatt, head of patient care at BAGH.
For the likes of Aslam Tagala (24), who owe their lives to a donor, the identity of the donor is the last concern. Tagala was suffering from renal failure since he was eight. He needed regular dialysis before a cadaver's tissues matched his in June 2013. "The most important thing for me is that I am healthy today," said Tagala.
But there is hope as some like Yogesh Joshi (59) and his family of five had pledged their organs in 2012. "My mother believed in charity and was inspired to donate her body. We followed her example. Organ donation needs to be promoted," said Joshi.