In a remarkable series of organ donation and transplants in Gujarat, the state recorded at least four landmark events in a single day, giving new life to approximately 13 patients undergoing transplant surgeries until late Wednesday night.
For the very first time, Gujarat recorded three cadaver organ donations from 3 different districts in a single day, two heart donations on a single day, first organ donation from the peripheral Junagadh district and the first airlift of organs for transport by the GVK-EMRI air ambulance.
3 organ donations
Three organ donations in a single day itself is an exceedingly rare event, but Gujarat recorded three donations from three different districts — Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Junagadh.
If another brain dead patient at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, whose relatives had already consented for organ donation, had not passed away on the operation table, there would have been four donations in a single day.
On May 25, the heart, kidneys and liver were donated by a 44-year-old brain dead patient at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital. Also, the liver and kidneys of a 66-year-old man were donated from Satasia Hospital in Junagadh.
The third organ donation, and the one from which the most number of organs were obtained for transplant, was from a 17-year-old youth whose heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, kidneys and cornea were donated from Global Sunshine Hospital in Vadodara.
Before this, three donations in a single day have been carried out only once this year and that too all at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital.
2 hearts donated in a day
Another important milestone reported by the State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO) was the donation of two hearts by two patients in the state on a single day, one each from Ahmedabad and Vadodara.
The total number of heart donations in the state till date to 67. Of these, 30 hearts have been transplanted within the state while 37 have gone to patients in other states of India. Notably, the lungs of the Vadodara patient were the 24th donation in Gujarat. All have been transplanted out of Gujarat. Junagadh also saw the first ever organ donation from the district.
According to GVK director Narendra Gohil, Wednesday also saw the first organ airlift by the state’s Air Ambulance run by GVK-EMRI, which transported the organs of the 66-year-old donor from Satasia Hospital in Keshod to Zydus Hospital in Ahmedabad.
While donated hearts are routinely transported by airlift to save time, the airlift on May 25 was only Gujarat’s third organ airlift for kidneys and liver. Doctors said the previous ones were done via chartered flights from Jamnagar and Surat.