First Multiple Organ Retrieval in Army

New Delhi, May 31 (UNI) In a creditable first in the Indian Army, the kidneys and liver of an accident victim were successfully retrieved and then successfully transplanted in three separate recipients.

The Multiple Organ Retrieval was effected here last week and the transplants effected within 24 hours at the Army Hospital (Research&Referral) here and in the Naval Hospital 'Ashvini' at Mumbai.

Sixty-year-old Ramesh Chand, father of Havaldar Madan Mohan of the Indian Army and Corporal Kamlesh Kumar of the Indian Air Force, was injured critically in a hit and run road accident at Faridabad on May 21. He was operated upon at the Army Hospital (R&R) but succumbed two days later.

Mrs Hemlata, wife of the deceased, expressed the desire to donate the organs. But postmortem was a legal requirement -- it being a road accident case. Through postmortems are generally not carried out in Army Hospitals, Dr Khakha Alexander of the Safdarjung Hospital carried out the postmortem in the Army Hospital itself so as to facilitate the speedy retrieval of the organs.

In a nightlong procedure, one kidney and liver were retrieved and transplanted to two serving soldiers in Delhi. One kidney was airlifted to Mumbai where it was transplanted in the wife of a serving soldier.

All the recipients were doing well, said an official spokesperson here.

With a computerised data bank of patients in need of various organs, Army doctors are now in a position to send organs from one place to another with the required urgency. This movement of a kidney from Delhi to Mumbai is also a first of its kind.

The entire procedure was carried out under the supervision of Maj Gen OP Mathew, Brigadier RP Choubey and Col AK Seth of Army Hospital (R&R).

During the past two months, this was the fourth case of organ transplant in Army Hospital (R&R).

UNI