NEW DELHI: The loss is personal for the parents of Roli Prajapati, but there could be some solace for them — their six-year-old daughter gave a new lease of life to five others. Roli, who was declared brain dead after suffering gunshot wound, is the youngest organ donor at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi.
The decision was not simple for Roli’s parents, who obviously prayed for a miracle till the end. Senior neurosurgeon Dr Deepak Gupta said that a team of doctors had to counsel the parents and seek their consent if they were willing to go for organ donation for saving other precious lives. Subsequently, the Prajapatis agreed to donate liver, kidneys, corneas, and heart valves of their daughter.
Hospital officials said that the child was brought on April 27 with a gunshot wound. The brain was completely damaged at that time, they said. Though the doctors at the AIIMS tried their best to save Roli, she did not recover. Various tests were conducted 12 hours apart, but the child was found to be brain dead.
It was then that the doctors decided to approach the grief-stricken parents with the suggestion.
Once the parents — Hari Narayan Prajapati and Poonam Devi — agreed to the proposal, the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) stepped in to oversee the delicate task of organ harvesting. While the liver went to a 7-year-old child from Lucknow, the kidneys came to the rescue of a 12-year-old. Her corneas were harvested and given to two adults, said AIIMS officials. The organ donation facility was opened way back in 1994 at AIIMS-New Delhi. Roli Prajapati was the youngest ever organ donor in its history, revealed Dr Gupta.
‘She lives on’
The child’s father said after the doctors counselled them about organ donation, he and his wife decided that Roli would be alive in other people’s lives and give others a reason to smile.