Family donates organs of 18-month-old baby

Child suffered head injury after a fall on December 31; TRANSTAN allocates the two kidneys to a private hospital and the liver to a four-month-old baby

The family of an 18-month-old child, who was declared brain-dead at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH), consented to donate his organs, making the child the youngest donor so far in the State. Till now, the youngest donor was a three-year-old child whose family came forward to donate organs in December 2022.

With this donation, data from the Transplant Authority of Tamil Nadu (TRANSTAN) shows that there were 52 paediatric donors in the State from 2010 to January 6, 2023. Donors and recipients aged less than 18 fall under the paediatric category.

According to officials, the baby had sustained a head injury following a fall on December 31 and was admitted in RGGGH. The child was declared brain-dead after which the family consented for organ donation. “The organ retrieval was done on Friday. The two kidneys and liver were retrieved and were utilised. TRANSTAN allocated the kidneys to a private hospital in the city. Considering the kidney size, both the kidneys were transplanted ‘en bloc’, meaning to a single recipient.

The liver was allocated to another private hospital in a southern district,” an official said.

This is the first time that TRANSTAN has allocated the liver from an 18-month-old brain-dead child to a four-month-old baby.

“In such cases of paediatric brain-dead patients, the role of grief counsellors is very crucial as they have to handle it with a lot of sensitivity. Managing and maintaining a paediatric braindead patient is very challenging, and it was a collective team effort by the doctors and paramedics at RGGGH,” R. Kanthimathy, member secretary of TRANSTAN, said.