MUMBAI: A 9-year-old boy with acute liver failure at KEM Hospital would have died within days had it not been for the humane act of a Thane-based family who donated the organs of their 33-year-old son following a tragic road accident.This single act of kindness has saved at least four lives so far and will continue to improve many more through the donation of bones and corneas. The donated liver was split: one portion saved the paediatric patient, and the other was transplanted into a man at Apollo Hospital in Navi Mumbai.
This “split” is only possible when the donor is under 45. While the city sees over 300 road accident fatalities annually, organ donation from young deceased individuals remains rare due to the immense grief surrounding such untimely losses. The latest donation took place at Mahavir Jain Hospital in Hajuri, Thane, on March 28, where a team of 40 doctors was involved in organ retrieval.The other donated organs included the heart, pancreas and kidneys. They were transplanted at various hospitals between Saturday and Sunday. Ajay Ashar, chairman of Mahavir Jain Trust, which runs the hospital, said, “It was a sensitive discussion, but after some time, the family agreed. We salute their courage in making this decision during such profound grief.”KEM dean Dr Sangeeta Ravat said it was only in 2024 that the hospital restarted liver ICU. Dr Akash Shukla, part of the transplant team at KEM, said that the child suffered from Wilson’s disease, which is a rare condition for which a liver transplant is essentially a cure. The procedure was entirely covered under the National Rare Disease Fund.But none of this would have been possible without coordination between traffic police teams from Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai. They created four “green corridors” for the organs to reach four different hospitals in time, travelling all the way from Mahavir Jain Hospital.“Hospitals request us to create a green corridor in advance when an organ has to be transferred,” explained a senior traffic police official.This is a demarcated, cleared-out route designed for the transport of donated organs to reach the destination hospital without halts. A pilot vehicle is assigned by the police to lead the ambulance from the point of origin to the destination.Traffic chowkies along the route are alerted, and personnel are posted to clear vehicles just before the ambulance arrives. The control room monitors the route through surveillance footage in real time.The system is well-oiled. The 37km distance from Mahavir Jain Hospital to HN Reliance Hospital in Girgaon was covered in 31 minutes with a human heart on ambulance seats. A heart has the shortest “cold ischemic time” of any organ, requiring it to be transplanted within a strict four-hour window.One kidney and pancreas reached Nanavati Hospital (27 km) in 32 minutes. Another kidney and split liver arrived at KEM (27 km) in 26 minutes, while the final transport from Thane to Apollo Hospital in Navi Mumbai (22 km) took 34 minutes.
