For the first time, a premier Indian Army hospital here conducted multiple organ retrieval and transplantation on an accident victim to give a new lease of life to three individuals.
The retrievals were conducted at the Army Hospital (Research & Referral) here on Wednesday night and the organs were transplanted on Thursday on two patients at the same facility and on a woman patient in Mumbai.
Donor Ramesh Chand, 60, whose two sons serve in the armed forces, was critically injured in a hit-and-run road accident at neighbouring Faridabad town on May 14.
He was operated upon at the hospital but breathed his last on late Wednesday evening. Chand’s wife Hemlata wanted to donate her husband’s organs but being a road accident case, an autopsy was a legal requirement, an army spokesman said on Thursday.
Though autopsies are generally not carried out in army hospitals, a doctor from the state-run Safdarjung Hospital conducted the procedure to facilitate the speedy retrieval of Chand’s organs, the spokesman added.
“In a night long procedure, one kidney and liver were retrieved and transplanted on two serving soldiers in Delhi. One kidney was airlifted late Wednesday to Mumbai, where it was transplanted (Thursday) on the wife of a serving soldier. All the recipients are doing well,” the spokesman said.This was the fourth case of an organ transplant in the Army Hospital (R&R) in two months.
“With a computerised data bank of patients, army doctors are now in a position to send organs from one place to another with the required urgency. The move of a kidney from Delhi to Mumbai is also a first of its kind,” the spokesman pointed out.
The entire procedure was carried out under the supervision of Maj Gen O P Mathew, Brig  R P Choubey and Col A K Seth of the Army Hospital (R&R).
The Armed Forces Organ Retrieval and Transplantation Authority (AORTA) was launched on April 14 to create awareness about organ donation, retrieval and transplantation.
As part of this initiative former Miss India Nikita Anand, Bollywood actor Gul Panag and many army officers on April 14 pledged their organs for donation at the Army Hospital (R&R).