Indian Air Force flies organs from Pune to Delhi for transplant

TNN

New Delhi, 31 Jul 2015: The Indian Air Force (IAF) recently put one of its special aircrafts, an Embraer, for a unique operation — transporting a kidney and a liver from Pune to Delhi. It was used to save the life of two critically-ill patients, a 56-year-old ex-serviceman with liver cancer and another jawan suffering from kidney failure. Both are doing good post-surgery, said doctors.

 

"The organs took one hour and 30 minutes to reach Delhi, while the normal travel time in any passenger aircraft is more than two hours," said Colonel PP Rao, head of the liver transplantation unit at Army Research and Referral hospital in New Delhi. Doctors said the aircraft took off from Pune at midnight and reached Delhi around 1.30am. "We started the surgery as soon as the organs arrived," Colonel Rao added.

 

It all started when the family of a 45-year-old woman, who was declared brain dead by doctors at Armed Forces Medical College and Command hospital in Pune on Saturday, decided to donate the organs. Retrieval of the kidneys and liver started immediately. One kidney was used in a transplant at the hospital itself, while the other and the liver were flown to Delhi.

 

Delhi’s R&R is the only military hospital where liver transplantation is done. Since the constitution of the armed forces organ retrieval and transplantation authority (AORTA) in 2007, it has achieved over 150 brain death declarations and nearly 30% of them agreed to donate multiple organs, said officials. The hospital is one of the most active transplant centres in the country. It does liver, kidney and heart transplant. There are plans to add intestine and pancreatic transplant, said sources.

 

Unlike a living donor, who can donate kidney, a portion of pancreas and part of the liver to a blood relative, a patient who is declared brain dead can donate more than 30 organs and tissues.

 

On July 24, an Indian Navy Dornier ferried a heart from Thiruvananthapuram to Kochi to save an auto driver’s life. It was the first time in India that a defence aircraft was used as an air ambulance in a civilian medical emergency.