GUJARAT: With huge success in organ donation, the city of Surat in Gujarat has redefined kindness and hope. The capital of diamonds and textiles has now earned a new moniker “Organ
Donor City”. Thanks to the efforts of committed medical professionals.
For the past 18 years, Nilesh Mandlewala and his colleagues have been devotedly working to help people through organ donation.
Nilesh Mandlewala served as the president of the Southern Gujarat Chamber of Trade and Industry and was a well-known businessman. He has gained the nickname “Organ Man” today for his important efforts in saving the lives of those in need of organ transplantation through his Donate Lifecare Charity.
By providing 1,073 organs and tissues, Mandlewala and his non-profit organisation have helped 986 individuals recover from organ failure, which is an amazing feat. Among the organs donated were 450 kidneys, 192 livers, eight pancreases, 43 hearts, 26 lungs, four hands, and 350 corneas. By effectively arranging more than a thousand organ and tissue donations across India, Surat and Donate Life have made a significant impact. This amazing achievement serves as motivation for others to join the cause of aiding the less fortunate.
During the challenging COVID-19 pandemic, when there was a decline in the number of cadaveric organ donations in India, donations of 64 kidneys, 36 livers, 14 hearts, 22 lungs, 1 pancreas, 4 hands, and 62 corneas gave 182 people across India and the globe new life.
Explaining how he began his road towards organ donation, he said my father’s kidney had failed in 1997. “He was brought to Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai so that I could operate on his kidney. As a result, my father was required to receive dialysis twice a week till 2004. The only people who understand how mentally, physically, and financially depleting this excruciating procedure is are those who have gone through it,” he said.
“I began a new path with the goal of organ donation in the year 2005. People did not know what brain death was back then. Which organs can be donated? The lack of information resulted in fear, ignorance, and irrational belief. I was initially criticised by the relatives when I tried to convince them to donate their organs. I stayed in the ICUs and the hospitals and began advising the family members of the brain-dead patient to donate their organs,” said Mandlewala.
Counselling the family of a brain-dead patient and persuading them to donate organs is very difficult, he added. After 18 years, Mandlewala’s dedication and focus on this cause are beginning to bear fruit. Nilesh Mandlewala is now a well-known name. With successful transplants in Mumbai and Chennai, the donated organs have not only saved the life of a resident of Gujarat, India but have also given new life to people from the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, Russia, and Sudan.
Several people in our country have lost their hands in various kinds of accidents. Mandlewala began advocating for the donation of hands along with internal organs in 2021, and he was successful.
“In 2018, both of my hands were electrocuted, and I had given up hope, but in 2021, someone told me that a hand transplant could be done and thanks to Nilesh bhai’s efforts, I was able to regain both of my hands in 2022 through hand transplant, and I can now live a normal life,” says Anita Theng, a 35-year-old woman from Maharashtra.
The youngest hands donation in our nation was made by a youngster from Surat who was 1 4 years old. The family of Hiral Mahida, an 18-year-old who was found to be brain dead after a car accident, recently decided to give his heart, kidneys, liver, and eyes to six others on January 2, 2023.
“At Surat’s Mahavir Hospital, a 17-year-old Ankleshwar youth had the heart of Hiral put into him. A 34-year-old man from Bharuch received a liver transplant at Kiran Hospital, as did a 49-year-old male and a 61-year-old woman from Surat receive kidney transplants. Two individuals received eye transplants at Kiran Hospital, Mandlewala said. Gujarat appreciated Mandlewal’s tireless efforts to promote organ donation and presented him with the highest civil award given in Gujarat, the “Gujarat Garima Award”.