Command Hospital harvests organs, saves 3 lives in Delhi

Chandigarh, April 18

Resuming organ transplant procedures after nearly a decade, the Western Command Hospital, Chandimandir, harvested three organs from a brain dead person and transported these to Delhi, giving a fresh lease of life to three serving soldiers with terminal illness.

The multi-organ retrieval of liver, two kidneys and corneas was undertaken in a marathon nightlong operation and immediately airlifted to the Army Research and Referral Hospital, New Delhi, by an Indian Air Force aircraft via a green corridor.

A serving soldier’s 63-year-old father, who was a cardiac patient, had suffered a fatal brainstem stroke while admitted to the intensive care unit of the Command Hospital. The soldier consented to donate the organs of his deceased father for the welfare of terminally ill and ailing soldiers with end-stage liver and kidney diseases.

The hospital’s organ transplant team, led by Brigadier Anuj Sharma, consultant in surgical gastroenterology and transplant surgery, was galvanised in the middle of the night and performed the complex procedure with the support of the critical care intensivist and chief of transplant.

The recipients of liver and kidney are said to be doing well and on the road to recovery.

Organ donation was started in the armed forces in the late 2000s and introduced in the Western Command Hospital in 2014. The process is coordinated by the Armed Forces Organ Retrieval and Transplantation Authority in New Delhi. — TNS

Nightlong operation

• A soldier gives consent to retrieve organs of his 63-year-old father who died of brainstem stroke during treatment at Command Hospital
• A liver, two kidneys and corneas retrieved in a nightlong operation by specialists and airlifted to an Army hospital in New Delhi by an Indian Air Force aircraft through a green corridor
• The recipients were terminally ill and ailing soldiers with end-stage liver and kidney diseases. Liver and kidney recipients are on road to recovery