Heart, liver flown to Mumbai, Pune via 80km green corridor

Nagpur: Ashwin Vilas Bansod, a 26-year-old farm labourer from Pusad, was declared brain-dead at JNMC Acharya Vinoba Bhave Rural Hospital, Sawangi, on Saturday morning. In the evening, his donated heart was flown to Fortis Hospital in Mumbai and the liver to Dinanath Mangeshkar Hospital in Pune after creating a green corridor from Wardha to Nagpur airport, a distance of nearly 80km.

The traffic police headed by SRP Nirmaladevi Arjun coordinated the movement of ambulance carrying the donated organs from Wardha to airport junction in Nagpur. Thereafter, the city police created a green corridor till the airport.

The heart and liver were taken to Mumbai and Pune by the doctors from the respective hospitals through commercial airlines. The liver has been donated to a 50-year-old man in Pune.

“The doctors timed the harvesting of organs in such a way that the organs reach to the recipients on time and are transplanted within the stipulated period,” said Dr Babaji Ghewade, medical superintendent at JNMC Sawangi.

The team including Dr Vrushali Patil from Pune and Dr Sandeep Sinha, Dr Anvay Mulay and Dr Vijay Shetty from Mumbai left Wardha at 7pm and reached city by 8pm to catch the flights at 8.20pm and 8.40pm to Pune and Mumbai.

The donated organs will give a new lease of life to six persons. Bansod’s family members agreed to donate his eyes, kidneys, heart and liver immediately after the staff at the Sawangi hospital counselled them about brain death and organ donation.

Ghewade said that the Bansod family is poor and simple but understood the importance of organ donation quickly, making the hospital’s job much easier. “Bansod was admitted at the hospital on Wednesday for a severe head injury. He was standing on his motorbike with his friend when a vehicle hit him badly,” he said.

One of the kidneys was donated to a 28-year-old man from Nanded who has been on the JNMC wait list for quite some time. Nephrologist Dr Sameer Choubey and uro surgeon Dr Sanjay Kolte from Nagpur are also attached to the JNMC and hence went to Wardha for harvesting and transplanting the organs. The team at Wardha included Dr Chandrashekhar Mahakalkar, Dr Sanjot Ninawe and Dr Amol Singham.

After performing kidney transplant at Wardha, Dr Kolte performed another kidney transplant at Wockhardt Hospital on a 30-year-old woman as per the wait list of the Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee.

Bullets

* A team of doctors from Nagpur left for Acharya Vinoba Bhave Rural Hospital, JNMC in Wardha at 9am

* The eyes were collected by the JNMC for corneal transplant

* One kidney was transplanted to a 28-year-old patient at JNMC Wardha and the second was transplanted to a 30-year-old woman at Wockhardt

* Traffic police headed by SRP Nirmaladevi Arjun coordinated the movement of ambulance carrying the donated heart and liver from Wardha to Pride Hotel in Nagpur

* From Hotel Pride, the city police created green corridor till the airport