Navi Mumbai, 18 November 2024: Mr Nair, 65-year-old resident of Panvel was rushed to a local hospital after collapsing at his home. Medical investigations revealed that the patient had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke or brain bleed. The medical team at this local hospital informed the family that they could not do anything to improve the patient’s condition. The distraught family was unwilling to accept the situation and shifted the patient to Apollo Hospitals Navi Mumbai (AHNM) where advanced care facilities were available.
Medical investigations at AHNM revealed that the patient was extremely critical & injury to the brain was significant. As no progress was seen in the condition of the patient, the medical team at Apollo Hospitals counselled the family with available options which included shifting the patient to another hospital to provide supportive care as well the option to support the cause of organ donation.
Mr Nair’s son said, “As a family, we were not ready to accept our father’s condition, we were prepared to do everything possible to make him live & be with us. In fact, we were ok even if he stayed in a comatose state with us. However, it began taking an emotional toll on us & we started to dwell on the possibility of donating my father’s organs & that we would be saving the lives of people. Most importantly, our father could continue living through others; this decision brought much comfort to our family. All our family members supported our decision to organ donation & we gave our consent to the Apollo team. Today I feel, that just as seniors make their will or even their funeral preparations, one should also consider registering to be an organ donor before their death”
Organ donation is the need of the hour. As of 2022, an estimated 1.5-2 lakh people need a kidney transplant each year, but only around 10,000 people receive a kidney transplant. Additionally, less than 3,000 liver transplants and only 250 heart transplants were performed in 2022, despite 80,000 people requiring a liver transplant and 10,000 needing a heart transplant. Building awareness & encouraging people to become organ donors is crucial to those suffering from end-stage disease of organs like kidney, liver & heart.
Dr Bharat Shah, General Secretary ZTCC, Mumbai said, “Organ donation is often the only way a life can be saved when suffering from end-stage organ disease and for the donor & his/her family, it is a lasting consolation that even though their loved one has died, one or more persons can live on through their gift of life. India lags far behind Western nations in organ donation with a donation rate of only 0.65 per million population. Examples of organ donation like Mr Nair’s family will help to create more awareness for this noble cause.
No cadaver transplant program can be successful unless there is time bound co-ordination amongst the hospitals and the society at large and I would like to acknowledge the efforts of Apollo Hospitals Navi Mumbai for their successful transplant program”
Mr Arunesh Punetha, Regional CEO of Western Region, Apollo Hospitals said, “We are grateful to the family of Mr Nair for supporting the noble cause of organ donation which has resulted in a new lease of life for 2 patients – a 59 yrs female at Fortis Hospital, Mumbai & a 55 yrs male at Nanavati Max Hospital, Mumbai. Apollo Hospitals Navi Mumbai has a robust transplant program having performed more than 650 transplant procedures of kidney, liver, heart as well as bone marrow transplants. While our transplant clinicians are crucial to the transplant program, our emergency medicine, pulmonologists, intensivists, anaesthesiologists, nursing teams, and rehab therapists play a critical role in supporting the program”
