Her last minute decision brought immediate happiness for four families – one terminally ill heart patient from Kolkata, two kidney patients and a liver patient while both corneas are still preserved for transplantation. The only request she made to the hospital to send the body of her husband in a refrigerator van to his native place in Lucknow.
Vinod Kumar (45), a private security guard, met with a road accident at Fatehpur Beri near Beri near Chattarpur on Wednesday afternoon in which he sustained severe head injuries. He was rushed to a private hospital in Vasant Kunj by the police and was declared brain dead.
The deceased was residing here with his wife and 18-year-old unmarried daughter while rest of his relatives live in Lucknow.
The doctors convinced them to donate the vital organs of the deceased.‘After formalities, the heart was harvested and transported to a hospital in Gurgaon within 12 minutes which is around 20-km away,” said a senior officer of the hospital. The heart was transplanted into a 49 year old man from Kolkata who was facing several cardiac complications.
His liver was transplanted into 46-year-old man from Dehradun while left kidney was transplanted into 45-year-old man from Delhi.
“We sent the right kidney and both the cornea to Safdargunj hospital where kidney was transplanted into a 35-year-old woman while corneas are preserved,” added the official.
According to experts, the organ donation rate in the country has increased 10-fold over the last 5 years from 0.05 per million population to 0.5 per million.