kolkata: A 39-year-old woman was declared brain dead by Regional Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation (ROTTO) at a private hospital in South Kolkata at around 11:05 AM on Wednesday, after conducting the necessary tests.
Her organs will be donated to different recipients at different hospitals across the city. Her liver will be extracted late on Wednesday evening and it will be donated to a recipient at SSKM Hospital while her corneas will be extracted by a private hospital group. The private hospital in Dhakuria has licence to extract and transplant kidneys but neither of kidneys extracted from the brain dead patient matched with the aspirant recipients currently enlisted with the hospital. One kidney each will go to another private hospital situated off EM Bypass while the other to the Command Hospital. ROTTO authorities had tried to organise extraction and transplant of her heart for a recipient from outside the state but it could not be arranged due to some technical issues. The organ extraction teams from various hospitals reached the private hospital in Dhakuria around 6 PM. The Kolkata Police has also been informed to create green corridors as and when necessary. The total organ extraction process will continue till late evening.
The woman was admitted to the hospital on August 29 and was put on ventilation. The patient, however, showed no signs of brain stem reflex and her pupils remained dilated. Both an MRI scan and EEG on August 30 revealed that she had suffered significant haemorrhagic changes in her brain due to hypoxia. A brain apnoea test at 4:45 PM on August 30 revealed brain death, which was further established by a second test at around 10:45 PM. The victim, a resident of Haridebpur, was a known patient of epilepsy and was under treatment since she was 17 years. On August 29, when her husband left for morning walk she was conscious but when he returned after an hour, he discovered her lying on the floor face down and frothing at her mouth. Her doctors suspect she had an epileptic seizure, which led to hypoxia.