When Deeyan Udani told his family that he would like to donate his organs, little did his Sydney-based family know that his life would end in January this year at the age of seven while vacationing in India, shortly after an MRI scan had revealed multiple blockages in his brain.
His parents, though, did not forget their young son’s desire. “His parents wanted Deeyan’s wish to be fulfilled, and donated his organs. We are now a donor family and are advocating organ donation to others,” says Milan Udani, Deeyan’s uncle.
On Monday, Mr Udani met families of other organ donors to mark Maharashtra Organ Donation Day at a felicitation of donor families for 2015-16 organised by the Zonal Transplant Coordination Centre (ZTCC) at KEM Hospital. Incidentally, 2015-16 saw the city’s first heart transplant and the first pediatric transplant.
Like Mr Udani, donor families were eager to share their stories as a way of remembering those not with them. Deepa Kakani, who attended the programme with her brother, said her father Dwarkadas Bhandari had died of severe cardiac arrest with multiple convulsions. “My father has been a giver all his life and we continued his legacy by donating his organs,” Ms Kakani said. “What can be greater than saving someone’s life even in death?” said Shobha D Bhandari, their mother.
Like the Bhandaris, Shrikanth Swaminathan had donated his father V Swaminathan’s organs when he was declared brain dead. He said age was not a bar as his father’s organs were fit to be donated even though he was 78. “It was a hard decision, but someone had to take it,” he said.
He recounted how he had received support from his otherwise orthodox family and peers. “These factors do not affect anyone anymore and everyone should take their initiatives to become a donor,” Mr Swaminathan said.
The writer is an intern at The Hindu
My father has been a giver all his life and we continued his legacy
Deepa KakaniDonor’s daughter
