In Mumbai, organ donation picks up pace

Six patients are waiting for both heart and lung transplant

In a good news, organ donation, hit by the pandemic, is gradually picking up in Mumbai. The city has matched up to last year's donation figure, with an 80-year-old brain-dead man's organs being donated to recipients.

According to the Zonal Transplant Coordination Centre, a government organisation that promotes organ donation, 3,325 patients in Mumbai are waiting for a cadaver (dead body) kidney, while 328 need a cadaver liver. The wait list for small bowel is seven, pancreas 12, heart 28 and lungs nine. Six patients are waiting for both heart and lung transplant, and five need a hand.

ZTCC president Dr S K Mathur said, "The intensivists were too busy in managing serious Covid-19 patients, and ICUs were also full. People were also reluctant. All these factors led to fewer organ donations last year." After the government laid down the standard operating procedures, "everybody got the confidence that cadaver organ donation and transplant can happen during the pandemic by taking precaution," said Dr Mathur.

"The transplants were done for urgent to semi-urgent category patients. It was found that by following Covid-19 protocols, neither the donors nor the recipients got Covid-19 post-transplant. This gave the confidence that led to a rise in cadaver organ donation this year," said Dr Mathur.