Minor declared brain-dead donate organs to give new lease of life to 2 children at AIIMS

A nine-year-old boy who was declared brain dead at Delhi AIIMS following a head injury donated his organs on Sunday to give a new lease of life to two children. 

The parents of the child who was admitted to AIIMS Trauma Centre after suffering a severe head injury in a road accident on April 15 gave consent to donate the minor’s organs following counselling.  This is the fifth paediatric donation amongst 19 donations which have taken place at JPN apex trauma centre, AIIMS, here since last April.

Speaking on this paediatric donation, Dr Deepak Gupta, Professor of Neurosurgery at AIIMS, said, “There is a large unmet need for organs by children suffering from end-stage diseases of the kidney, liver and heart across India and training of doctors in transplants in children needs to be reinforced at regular intervals”. 

“Incidentally, 9 year old Master S was born with only one kidney (as was confirmed on CT and USG abdomen) and hence only one kidney was retrieved to be transplanted to another boy at AIIMS Delhi, while liver was transplanted at ILBS to another 16-year-old boy in Delhi as per allocation by NOTTO,” Dr Gupta said. 

Talking about the challenges involving organ donations from very young donors, Dr Gupta said the biggest myth amongst many is that organ donations can be done only between the 18-60 years of age group. Dr Gupta added that children are a very special group and need targeted approaches for brain death certification, maintenance of donor organs after brain death, subsequent organ retrievals and transplantations.

Both corneas retrieved by the RP Centre Eye bank team will be used to give new vision to patients in need at AIIMS in subsequent days, he said, adding that heart valves were also retrieved for later usage.