IEP Chandigarh
Donor Kundan’s braveheart family’s magnanimous gesture of Organ Donation saves 4 lives with the transplantation of Heart, Liver, Pancreas and 2 Kidneys
Achieving another milestone, PGIMER conducted its first ever simultaneous pancreas & kidney transplant from where the pancreas was retrieved from a deceased donor while the kidney was donated by the sister of patient,
22nd January turned unfortunate for 21 year old Kundan Baitha from Siswa Bairagi, West Champaran, Bihar when going to some work, Kundan’s bike skidded, leading his head hit against the road and making him unconscious with fatal head injury.
On getting the tragic news, the family first got Kundan to Regional hospital, Una and seeing no improvement, Kundan was shifted to PGIMER in an extremely critical condition on 23rd January. However nothing could alter the destiny and Kundan’s seven days of grueling struggle between life and death came to an end on 29th January when he was declared brain dead by the certification committee at PGIMER.
But even in this darkest hour and amid their own grief, the grief stricken father Narsingh Baitha showed exceptional courage by consenting to donate the organs of their deceased dear one when the option of Organ Donation was flagged to him.
Following the family’s consent, heart, Liver, kidneys and pancreas were retrieved from the donor for transplantation to improve others’ lives.
Paying rich tributes to the donor family, Prof. Vivek Lal, Director PGIMER stated, “One develops a different level of respect for the donor families like this one of donor Kundan Baitha, who sustain the hope in others by making it possible through their courageous decisions of organ donation braving their own tragedy.”
“With incessant efforts of PGIMER team involved in the process, the momentum for Organ Donation certainly seems to be building up gradually. Though slow, but we hope to inch closer to bridging the donor-recipient gap,” added Prof. Lal.
Deetailing about the latest case, Prof. H S Kohli, Head, Deptt. of Nephrology, PGIMER stated, ” It was a huge challenge prepping for cadaver and live transplant simultaneously. The team worked in tandem and at a breakless pace to make it success finally.”
Adding further, Prof.Ashish Sharma, Head, Deott. of Renal Transplant Surgery, shared, “Pancreas transplant is the only modality which is known to cure diabetes in the current era. Currently, this modality is limited to very few hospitals in India. PGIMER, Chandigarh has become the leader in pancreas transplant in the entire country over the last few years
Prof. Ashish Sharma further elaborated, “The patient was suffering from Type 1 Diabetes from the last 21 years and was having facing lot of difficulties. The diabetes had affected his kidneys and led to end-stage kidney failure requiring hemodialysis for the last three years. While on dialysis his condition continued to deteriorate and in the last one year, he was having repeated admissions in the PGI emergency for either fluid/electrolyte disturbances requiring emergency dialysis or due to episodes of hypo or hyperglycemia despite being managed by doctors from Department of Endocrinology, Nephrology and Renal Transplant Surgery.”
While the patient’s sister was willing to donate her kidney, she could not donate her pancreas. As the waiting list for pancreas was too long therefore, the patient along with the doctors decided to proceed for kidney transplant alone which meant that the disease which caused kidneys to fail would still be there. Meanwhile, yesterday a donor family agreed to donate organs of their loved one where the kidneys had already been allocated to two while the pancreas was available. Seeing this opportunity, the family was given the option to do an emergency living donor kidney transplant along with deceased donor pancreas transplant for which they agreed.
The operation lasted for 12 hours and involved nearly 30 medical persons from various departments. The combined transplant operation was successful without any complication. Currently patient is maintaining a good urine output and normalization of his blood sugars. As per the current waiting list at PGI 60 patients are awaiting pancreas and kidney transplant at PGIMER, Chandigarh. While around nearly thousand deceased donations happen across India every year, the number of pancreas transplants across the country remain less than 10- 20 per year. The reason for non utiilsation of pancreas include lack of trained doctors in this field as well as organ allocation rules which do not allow kidneys to be allocated along with the pancreas in most states of India. If the families of these patients can come forward for kidney donation, then many of these pancreas can be utilized as was done in this case.