Tamil Nadu   

Defying death with organ donation

M.Sivakumar.

CUDDALORE: A six-year-old boy of Chidambaram has given a new lease of life to at least three persons and vision to two others through multiple-organ donation.

The eyes, kidneys and liver of M. Sivakumar, who was declared brain dead Sunday last, were harvested in Apollo Hospitals, according to his father S. Murali, a retired Air Man of the Indian Air Force.

Mr. Murali, who took voluntary retirement after 20 years of service in the technical wing of the Air Force, told reporters at Chidambaram that he and his wife M. Sivakumari, a teacher of Kamarajar Matriculation Higher Secondary School, had taken the decision to donate the organs of Sivakumar, their second son. Being a recipient of a kidney (donated by his brother), Mr. Murali was aware of the significance of the gesture. While at home Sivakumar, a Standard I student of the Kamarajar School, took ill all of a sudden Thursday last. Soon after complaining of discomfort, he developed fits. Mr. Murali, who had gone for the monthly check at the Air Force Hospital in Bangalore, rushed back to Chidambaram and got him admitted to Rajah Sir Muthiah Medical College Hospital at Annamalai Nagar. With his pulse rate declining fast, Sivakumar was referred to Mehta Hospital at Chetpet and put on the life-support system. Initially, it was suspected to be a brain haemorrhage, but later diagnosed to be a block in the heart.

While doctors were planning angiogram, his health sank, and the brain cells ceased functioning on Saturday night. After conducting the mandatory tests, the doctors declared him brain dead.

It was a hard decision for the couple, who had a lot of ambitions for Sivakumar, to allow the doctors to withdraw the life-support system. The couple had lot of ambitions for Sivakumar and therefore they did not want his life to be so wasted. To perpetuate his memory, they decided to donate his organs. Sivakumar was taken to Apollo Hospitals where his eyes, kidneys and liver were harvested.

Mr. Murali said that in keeping with the medical ethics the hospital refused to divulge the details about the recipients. However, they learnt that the eyes were donated to Sankara Nethralaya, one kidney to a person from Neyveli and the other to a person in Chennai and the liver to an eight-year-old boy in Delhi.

The bereaving couple derives solace from the thought that their son Sivakumar is living through others.

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