14-Month-Old Boy’s Heart and Kidney Save Two Lives

Fourteen-month-old Somnath Shah from Surat has become Gujarat’s youngest donor of heart and kidneys, donating it to two persons. Somnath, who hailed from Mubarakpur village in Siwan district of Bihar, was declared brain dead after he suffered a haemorrhage and multiple skull fractures. The hospital contacted Donate Life, a Surat-based NGO, to convince the parents to donate their son’s organs. The family showed courage to rise above the loss of the son’s life and donate his organs giving a new lease of life to two children.

His heart was transported via a green corridor, through a commercial flight covering a distance of 331.7Kms in one hour and 25 minutes. A three-and-a-half-year-old girl from Navi Mumbai, who had been waiting for a heart transplant since she was two, finally had a reason to celebrate after she had a successful heart transplant. Pratibha Mule, mother of the girl who received the heart, said, “We are thankful to the parents of the toddler who donated his heart. She is still unconscious state but is doing fine. We have been creating awareness through social media to get a heart for our daughter.

His kidneys were harvested at the Institute of Kidney Diseases and Research Centre (IKDRC) and were transplanted to a 15-year-old boy from Ahmedabad who was suffering from acute renal failure and was on dialysis for 10 years.

Dr Dhaval Naik, heart-transplant specialist at CIMS hospital in Ahmedabad, said Somnath had become the youngest heart donor in Gujarat. “It is very difficult when it comes to children. Explaining to the family becomes tricky. This also stresses on the need to have more people working towards paediatric transplants and spreading awareness about it,” said Dr Naik.

"We salute the brave parents of the 14-month-old boy from Surat and the husband of the 45-year-old old woman from Karjat, for consenting to donate; their kin lives on in the form of the recipients," the hospital's zonal director Dr S Narayani said.

Source-Medindia