Brain dead man gives new lease of life to four others

New Delhi: The organs of a 26-year-old brain dead MBA student gave a new lease of life to four critically ill persons, to whom his organs were donated.

Ashutosh Sharma, who was working as an intern with a Delhi-based company, met with a road accident on April 7, while proceeding to his office. He was admitted to Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in a critical condition.

Sharma’s condition steadily deteriorated and on April 12, he stopped showing any brain stem reflex activity and was declared brain dead on April 15.

While his heart was donated to a 33-year-old man, diagnosed with poor heart function, his liver was transplanted to a 49-year-old patient suffering from chronic kidney disease (CKD) and was on dialysis. Sharma’s second kidney was donated to another person in a different hospital, said Dr Bhabha Nanda Das, cardio, thoracic and vascular surgeon, Apollo Hospital.

According to figures with the National Organ Transplant and Tissue Organisation (NOTTO), while there is a demand for two lakh kidney transplants annually, only 8,000 are being done.

Similarly, around 50,000 people need liver transplant operations and 30,000 need heart transplants against the availability of 3,000 and 100, respectively.

The shortage of organs has led to an ever-increasing demand-supply gap, even though every person who dies naturally or is declared brain dead is a potential donor. A team of doctors performed the heart transplant procedure at the hospital in a four-hour-long surgery.

“All three recipients at Apollo Hospitals have started to show signs of improvement and are being monitored by a team of doctors,” said a statement by the hospital.

“In this case Sharma’s mother has shown courage and determination. Even in her loss, she is happy that her son is the reason for a new lease of life for four people. We need to create awareness on organ donation to save lakhs of patients suffering from organ failure,” said A. Bajpai, MD, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals.