RAJASTHAN: In Udaipur, an ordinary tea-stall owner is making extraordinary waves. To kidney patients in Rajasthan with no money for treatment, Jitendra Singh Shekhawat alias ‘Kaju Bhai’ is no less than God. Shekhawat found instant fame 12 years ago when he came to the help of Kanta Luhaar, a poor woman on the verge of death. He not only convinced her husband to donate a kidney but also raised the needed Rs 4.27 lakh for the transplant by virtually begging door-to-door.
Now much savvier, he has expanded his work using the social media and digital platforms to help people across the state and to interact with the benevolent souls who could help the cause. In the dozen years of advocacy for kidney patients among the poorest of the poor, Shekhawat has been able to motivate family members of 64 patients for kidney transplants which are an expensive, complicated and difficult procedure. About 50 of these patients were not financially sound. So, he worked to spread awareness and raise over Rs 1.38 crore to help them get back on their feet.
“For the poor, kidney problems are akin to death as the treatment and transplants are expensive. People have to even sell their homes to get this done. Around 50 of the 64 people motivated for transplant by us had no money,” Shekhawat says. Helping such patients became the larger purpose of his life after Shekhawat’s elder son died due to kidney failure. “It was my misfortune that I could not donate my kidney to my son as the operation was to be held in Ahmedabad and I had no money. I came to Udaipur to raise Rs 5 lakh by any means. But my son had an attack and died during dialysis. I decided that I will help whoever needs kidney treatment in Udaipur city,” he said.
He set out on a unique struggle and laid the foundation of the Lake City Kidney Care Centre in Udaipur, involving hundreds of commoners and philanthropists. Today, the foundation is helping patients in every possible way handling 13 kidney transplants each year with donations. “Udaipur has 6,334 kidney failure cases but just 125 kidney donors. We counsel families to donate kidneys to their relatives,” he adds.
His special way of raising funds for kidney diseases is by publishing photographs of kidney patients in the newspapers and appealing for financial help. Social media campaigns are also run to draw people’s attention to the cause. “We give the account details of the patient and the hospital in our campaigns so that they can be benefitted directly,” said Shekhawat.
To Jamna Das, Shekhawat is God. Das had given up hope after hearing about the expenses involved in a kidney transplant operation but came to know about Shekhawat. Later, Rs 3.5 lakh was raised and deposited in his bank account. In a happy ending, he got kidney transplantation from his mother in 2017. “He came as an angel to save me,” he says. It is the result of Shekhawat’s campaign over a decade that complicated kidney transplant procedures are now available in Udaipur as well. “Earlier, the nearest kidney transplant centre was in Ahmedabad but now we have got three procedures done here at the Geetanjali Hospital,” Shekhawat adds. Shekhawat, says “The only goal of my life is to save people with kidney disease till I am no more.”
Vow to save lives
Shekhawat’s elder son died due to kidney failure after being born with only one kidney which was damaged due to medicines that he took. He had neither money nor the means to treat him. He vowed, no other person would die if he could help it.