Himachal men donating organs for wives

In a pleasant new trend in Himachal Pradesh, husbands are increasing coming forward to donate organs to their wives.

Doctors from private hospital Fortis, who were here Tuesday to talk about the success of kidney transplantation in cases where the patient and the donor have different blood groups, confirmed the trend.

Elaborating further, Priyadarshi Ranjan, kidney transplant surgeon, Fortis, Mohali, told IANS that a trend has been seen in Himachal Pradesh that husbands are volunteering to donate kidneys to save the lives of their wives. Out of the six kidney transplant cases involving patients and donors of different blood groups, at least four were from Himachal Pradesh and in all cases husbands were the donors, he said.

"This trend is not common in the northern region, especially Punjab, where the donor is rarely a male member," he said.

The former assistant professor with the Sanjay Gandhi PGIMS in Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh said generally a woman family member in Punjab volunteers to help the patient, be it a man or a woman. However, husbands in Himachal Pradesh have set a new trend, he said.

"I did four-five surgeries in the last one and a half years in which the kidney donors were husbands. All the patients were from Himachal Pradesh," he added.

His latest patient is Rekha Devi from Dhaneta village Kangra district.

"My father-in-law told my husband, in fact directed him, to donate a kidney to save my life," she said.

Ranjan said now kidney transplants are possible even if the blood groups of both the donor and the recipient didn't match.

In case of Rekha Devi, the blood group of the donor was A+ and that of the recipient, B+.

"So far we did six transplantations in which the blood groups of both the donor didn't match," Ranjan added.

Nephrologist Amit Sharma said traditionally transplants required an exact blood match.

"Now ABO incompatible blood type kidney transplant are a reality and they have been successfully performed as is evident in the case of Rekha Devi," he added.

--Indo-Asian news Service

vg/vip/vm/vm