The Tamil Nadu Police has stated that protocol was breached during an organ transplant which took place in Chennai in May.
A heart and lung which were retrieved from a brain-dead patient and the harvested organs were allocated to two foreigners without following the standard protocol required. The two recipients died shortly after the transplant surgeries, according to The Hindu.
The patient, P. Manikandan, from whom the organs were transplanted from was a resident of Kerala who became brain dead in a road accident in Villupuram in Tamil Nadu. The family of Manikandan was initially reluctant to let his organs be harvested but later gave in due to persuasion.
The COO, who counselled the family, even though the grief counsellors were supposed to talk to them, persuaded the family to let the hospital harvest the organs, according to The Hindu.
Kerala Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan had written a request to the Tamil Nadu government requesting it to look into the matter.
An investigation launched by the Department of Medical and Rural Health discovered that the decision to transplant the organs was made by two outsourced staff of the Transplant Authority of Tamil Nadu (TRANSTAN). They were engaged in 2014 and both resigned after the incident came to light.
The inquiry report which was made after the investigation stated that the organs were originally supposed to go to an Indian patient on the waitlist but were later transplanted into two foreigners. The report stated that the reason why the organs went to the foreigners and not the Indians was that the chief surgeon was not available at the moment. However, the investigation established that he was available.
The heart which was supposed to go to a Ukrainian national went to a Lebanese patient. The kidney also was not given to the allotted patient.
A similar incident had taken place in the hospital in November 2016.
