Meera and her husband Onkar Singh, a cloth merchant from Anandpur Sahib, decided to donate their son’s kidneys after Gagandeep was declared “brain dead” by the PGI doctors.
The PGI termed it a rare gesture, which is proved from the fact that this was only the eighth kidney transplant in the history of PGI involving a “brain dead” patient.
The hospital performs more than 150 renal transplants of live donations annually.
For the parents, guidance from PGI doctors helped them arrive at the decision. “Once the doctors explained to my husband that our son has no chance of survival, he consulted me if we could donate his kidneys to save someone else’s life. I agreed as it would make my son immortal. I wish the two recipients a long life,” said the mother, fighting back her tears and clinging on to her elder son for support.
“I have seen a relative die of renal failure and that made me sensitive towards the cause of cadaver donation. For two days, I hoped against hope that my son would recover but when nothing positive happened, my wife and I decided to save the life of someone from the economical weaker section,” said Onkar.
A motorcycle accident landed Gagandeep in the PGI Emergency on December 4, after which he was put on artificial respiration for a few days. The hospital committee performed a number of tests before it declared Gagandeep “brain dead” — a condition in which the brain stops functioning but the heart continues to pump under the artificial respiration system.
This condition, according to doctors, gives a false hope to the relatives that the patient may recover.
“It is very difficult to convince the relatives in ‘brain death’ cases that there is no hope. The gesture of the parents in this case, who lost a young son, is really exemplary. Other families should take a cue,” says Dr M Minz, head of the transplant surgery department.
Along with doctors from the nephrology department, Dr Minz performed the operation on December 9. Gagandeep was put off artificial respiration the same day.
The recipients
After being successfully transplanted Gagandeep’s kidneys, 20-year-old Saurabh from Serkaghat and 34-year-old Dheeraj from Solan are recuperating at the hospital.
For Dheeraj, the sole bread winner of the family, it is a case of second transplant. In the previous attempt, his mother had donated the kidney, which later caught infection. Dheeraj’s mother Lalita expressed her gratitude to Gagandeep’s parents. “I feel all my prayers have been answered.”
On the other hand, Saurabh had been on dialysis for the last three months. “The doctor called me to inform that a kidney was available for my son. I met
Gagandeep’s family and thanked them immensely for their gesture. It has completely changed my world,” said Ambika Sharma, Saurabh’s mother.
‘Awareness required’
While two to three cases of ‘brain dead’ patients arrive at the PGI every week, kidney transplants from such cases take place in only one or two cases each year. The hospital attributes the whopping gap to the lack of awareness among the people about brain death and the significance of such patients in cadaver donations.