Bengaluru: For decades, doctors have been seen as lifesavers through the care they provide. In a rare act that went far beyond the call of duty, a city-based fetal medicine specialist chose to save a life in a deeply personal way — by donating her own kidney to a stranger.Dr Thankam S, a consultant at Manipal Hospitals on Old Airport Road, first pledged post-mortem organ donation in 2014. But as she learned more about the low conversion rates in deceased donations, she felt compelled to act sooner. “I didn’t want to leave it to circumstances,” she said. “I decided to become a living donor.”What followed was a decade of legal hurdles, lack of family support, and repeated rejections by the hospital-based authorisation committee because she was not related to the recipient. In 2023, she matched with a 24-year-old orphan on the cadaver waiting list, but permission was denied, with the committee mentioning “not being able to establish a relationship between the donor and the recipient” as the reason.“Finally, in June 2025, we filed a case in court to tackle the legal hurdles, and in Dec 2025, a high court judge directed the hospital-based authorisation committee to give me permission for donation. It was a time-bound order, and the committee was directed to identify the top five candidates for donation within five weeks. The first recipient was declared unfit, and the second one, a 56-year-old woman, was fit for transplant. The surgery was approved on Feb 2, and I knew nothing about the patient until then. The surgery took place on Feb 10,” she added.“My long-held dream is fulfilled now. It’s not just about donating a kidney, but about wanting to spread the message. We need to create awareness, especially among young people, that it is completely safe to donate a kidney to unrelated persons, and telling them that a doctor did it will create confidence. Non-related person donation is common in other states, but we need it to gain momentum in Karnataka,” Dr Thankam said.Dr Thankam is now 59 years old, and her kidney donation was not an isolated act of altruism. She also served with the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders for many years and completed missions in Yemen and Afghanistan, including a tour in March 2025.
