At just 2 years and 10 months, this little boy from Bengaluru has donated his heart, kidneys, liver and eyes.
After being declared brain dead on Thursday, it took less than an hour for the boy's heart to be airlifted from Bengaluru to Chennai on Friday afternoon. In a surgery lasting nearly eight hours, doctors transplanted the heart successfully into a Russian child in the Tamil Nadu capital, reports The Times of India.
On 12 December, the Bengaluru boy was admitted to a nursing home in the Karnataka capital after getting high fever. He was given an injection when there was no improvement in his condition. The boy's parents eventually shifted him to Manipal Hospital on 14 December; however he was declared brain dead at 4.30 pm on Thursday.
On being intimated about organs available through cadaver donation, the Zonal Coordination Committee of Karnataka (ZCCK) reacted swiftly, and matched them with needy patients, who underwent transplants in private hospitals.
In an operation which lasted less than an hour, the baby's vital organs were harvested. The heart was airlifted from Manipal Hospital to Chennai's Fortis Malar Hospital on a chartered flight.
The boy's liver was sent to matching recipients at Apollo Hospital, Bannerghatta Road, the cornea was sent to Narayana Nethralaya, and kidneys were sent to Sagar Hospital. However, his heart didn't match that of any patient in Bengaluru hospitals, and a search was organised to find a suitable recipient in Chennai.
Manjula KU from ZCCK, who coordinated the transplant, said that the potential recipient was found at Fortis, Chennai.
The Russian child, a few months back, had been diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy - a condition in which the heart swells and loses its capacity to pump blood efficiently. He was admitted to Fortis Malar last month, after he enrolled in the transplant registry for a heart.
The child's parents were told by the doctors that a heart transplant was the only way out.
As luck would have it, the good news for the boy came on Friday, from Bengaluru. The heart was retrieved by a team of doctors from Fortis Malar who went to Bengaluru.
"The procedure began a little ahead of 2 pm where we prepped the patient for surgery. As soon as the heart arrived by 2.10 pm, things began to move at full swing. Now the heart is beating well, and the surgery is a success," said one of the doctors at Fortis Malar, who was part of the surgical team.
The child's mother was overcome by emotion. "It had been a very trying time for the past one month and I could not control my tears when I finally saw the heart arrive at the hospital from the airport. All I could do was join my hands in prayer all through the day hoping that the surgery would be a success," she said with the help of a translator at the hospital.
