16-Month-Old Boy Becomes Odisha’s Youngest Organ Donor, Saves 2 Lives
The parents of Janmesh Lenka took the bold decision that converted their personal tragedy into a source of hope for others.
Bhubaneswar:
A 16-month-old city boy was declared Odisha’s youngest organ donor, bringing new life to two patients, an AIIMS-Bhubaneswar official told PTI on Monday.
The parents of Janmesh Lenka took the bold decision that converted their personal tragedy into a source of hope for others.
Janmesh was admitted to the paediatric department of AIIMS Bhubaneswar on February 12 after inhaling a foreign object, blocked his airway and caused breathing difficulty. After receiving immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and the unrelenting efforts of the intensive care team to stabilize him over the following two weeks, the child was declared brain dead on March 1, the official said.
Realizing the possibility of giving the gift of life to others, the medical team of AIIMS counselled the grieving parents about organ donation. They agreed, allowing their child’s organs to be used for life-saving transplants, he added.
After the family’s consent, a team of transplant coordinators and surgeons worked in a multi-disciplinary manner to expedite the retrieval and transplantation process.
The gastro-surgery team headed by Dr. Brahmadutt Patnaik retrieved the liver successfully and sent it to the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) in New Delhi, which was then transplanted into an end-stage liver failure patient child, said the official.
The kidneys were extracted and en-bloc transplanted to a single teenage patient at AIIMS Bhubaneswar. The intricate surgical operation was successfully carried out by the initiative of Dr. Prasant Nayak from the urology department, he added.
This was merely the second case of en-bloc kidney transplantation in the state, an extremely specialized surgical technique where both kidneys of a paediatric donor are transplanted as a whole into a solitary recipient.
“In another record-breaking feat, AIIMS Bhubaneswar enabled multiorgan transplantation from Janmesh, the youngest organ donor of Odisha,” the institute stated in a release.
Dr. Ashutosh Biswas, executive director of AIIMS Bhubaneswar, congratulated the transplant coordination team and the medical fraternity involved, underlining their untiring efforts towards ensuring the smooth conduct of the organ retrieval and transplantation procedure.
He also expressed his deepest appreciation to the parents for their remarkable generosity, recognizing their selfless choice at a time of deep sorrow.
“The tale of Master Janmesh Lenka and what his parents did is a strong reminder of how organ donation can make a difference, particularly in paediatric patients. Their selfless deed not only saved lives but also created a benchmark for raising awareness about paediatric organ donation in India,” Biswas added.
Janmesh’s father is a hostel warden at AIIMS Bhubaneswar.
“I won’t receive back my son. But a few other’s mothers will rejoice when my son’s organs will be transplanted on other’s children,” said Janmesh’s mother.
Following Odisha state government’s policy, the body of Janmesh was cremated after conducting a guard of honour here on Monday.
