Nalanda boy’s heart, liver transplanted in Kolkata, Delhi

PATNA: For the first time in Bihar, the organs of a 19-year-old brain-dead donor were retrieved and transported to Delhi and Kolkata for transplant on Monday. The experts from New Delhi’s Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) and Kolkata’s R N Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Science retrieved Saurabh Pratik’s liver and heart respectively at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) in Patna.The cornea of the donor was also retrieved before handing over the body to his parents.
The parents of Saurabh from Gajendra Bigha under the Hilsa police station area in Nalanda district decided to donate his organs after a private nursing home in Nalanda declared him brain-dead following fall from his rooftop on September 19. Saurabh’s father Shashi Bhushan Prasad brought him to the IGIMS on September 22, said its medical superintendent Dr Manish Mandal.
“The liver was carried in a special organ box and the team from Delhi left by a Jet Airways flight at 4.45pm and the flight reached there in 90 minutes. The transplant started at ILBS at 8pm. While the Kolkata team carried the heart in a special box and took off at 4pm. The experts reached Kolkata at 4.50pm and started the transplant,” Dr Mandal said.
Dr Mandal said the boy’s brain was not dead when he was brought to the IGIMS. “He was put on a life support system. We declared him brain-dead only on September 23. We informed the regional organ tissue transplant organization (ROTO) at Kolkata for heart and ILBS Delhi for liver transplant,” he said and added that IGIMS had earlier signed an MoU with ILBS for liver transplant. Dr Mandal said the ILBS team included Dr Piyush Kumar and Dr Senthil Kumar. IGIMS’s kidney transplant experts Dr Sanjay and Dr R Kumar Singh accompanied them to Delhi.
The IGIMS administration had already informed the traffic police and Patna SSP Manu Maharaaj for creating a green corridor before the organs were retrieved. “The police chalked out the traffic plan and stopped the vehicles while the van carrying organs reached Patna airport on time,” Dr Mandal said. He also said Saurabh is the first brain-dead organ donor in Bihar.
“The initiative to donate the vital organs was taken by Saurabh’s mother Sarita Sinha, who had received a kidney from his brother in November last year as both her kidneys had failed,” Dr Mandal informed this newspaper.
The liver can be used within six hours and heart can survive for eight hours after being retrieved from a donor’s body, Dr Mandal said. The cornea can survive for 24 hours.
Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi and state health minister Mangal Pandey, who were present at the IGIMS to attend the orientation programme organized by its Brain Death Committee, appreciated Saurabh’s parents for taking the initiative and said six people would be benefited from his organs. “The waiting list for organ transplant will surely be shorter if the people donate their organs,” Modi said.