Bihar man donates organs, gives new lease of life to six in Gujarat

In death, Chamaklal Yadav, a 46-year-old crane operator from Bhagalpur, has given much to the society few would even dream of in Bihar. His family donated his liver, heart, kidneys and corneas in Gujarat, and gifted a new lease of life to six different people early this month, after Yadav suffered a fall from the crane in Surat, where he used to work, and was declared brain dead on April 1.

For someone from Bihar, which lags in organ donation, this was no mean accomplishment. “Despite their overwhelming grief, Yadav’s family made the courageous decision to donate his vital organs. The liver and kidney transplantations were done at Ahmedabad’s Institute of Kidney Diseases and Research Centre (IKDRC), heart transplantation at UN Mehta Hospital, Ahmedabad, and the corneas were donated to the Lokdrashti Chakshu Bank in Surat,” said Nilesh Mandlewala, founder of Donate Life, an NGO, which worked closely with Dr Ankit Gajjar, an intensivist of Asutosh Hospital, Surat, to counsel Yadav’s family into donating the organs.

As a gesture of gratitude, Donate Life felicitated Yadav’s family by sending his body to his native place in Bihar by air cargo on April 2 and paying for the air passage of Yadav’s wife, Lalita Devi, nephew Vinod Kumar Yadav and two others. The family reached Patna with the body the next day and drove to Bhagalpur, where Yadav was cremated.

The Ahmedabad-based NGO even coordinated the road transportation from Patna airport to Bhagalpur through Bimal Jain of the Dadhichi Deh Dan Samiti, as Pawan Kejriwal of the samiti received the family and the body at the Patna airport and sent them to Bhagalpur in an ambulance.

“Having suffered a fall on March 28, Yadav complained of headache and vomiting. He was admitted to the Asutosh Hospital in Surat, where he was diagnosed with brain haemorrhage. Despite the best efforts of the medical team, he slipped into comatose state. The brain stem declaration committee of Asutosh Hospital in Surat declared Yadav brain dead on April 1,” added Mandlewala.

Bihar lags in deceased organ donation.

“Only two deceased organ donations have been reported so far of a person each from Nalanda and Muzaffarpur in 2018 and 2020 in the state,” said Bimal Jain, secretary of the Dadhichi Deh Dan Samiti, Bihar.

“Bihar’s laggardness in organ donation is primarily due to lack of awareness and the unwieldy structure of the brain-dead committee, which does not exist in most of the medical colleges and hospitals of Bihar. Say for instance, in Patna, the brain-dead committee is at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS),” said Jain.

Despite three decades of having a law to facilitate organ donation, India registered just about 1,100 deceased donors for organ transplantation in 2023 and 90 per cent of them came from only five states, Telangana (252), Tamil Nadu, Karnataka (both 178), Maharashtra (148) and Gujarat (146).

As per the State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO) data, Bihar has so far reported only 229 kidney donations, one liver and two heart donations since 2014. The heart was sent to Kolkata on both occasions in 2018 and 2020, as Bihar still does not have heart transplantation facility.

As many as 20 body donations have so far been done through the Dadhichi Deh Dan Samiti in Bihar, said Jain.