Amid COVID-19 lockdown, 4-year-old from Tamil Nadu undergoes liver transplant in Bengaluru

The child was suffering from advanced liver illness and required an immediate liver transplant when she was brought to Bengaluru Aster CMI Hospital.

According to doctors, Raghavi was 7 months old when she contracted high fever that caused a mild swelling in her stomach. Even though some temporary treatment was given at that instance in a hospital near her native place, the baby’s health worsened, leaving her parents in despair.

“Over the years, her condition deteriorated further as she started vomiting blood and developed jaundice which progressively increased. There was also blood in her stool. We were helpless and heartbroken,” Muniswamy, Raghavi’s father, and an employee with a borewell service provider, told indianexpress.com.

On referring to Aster CMI Hospital, doctors informed her parents that the child was at the last stage of liver failure and that she required an urgent transplant.

Doctors further explained that the surgery lasted for 9 hours, operated by a team of four transplant surgery experts – Dr Sonal Asthana, Dr Rajiv Lochan J, Dr Mallikarjun Sakpal, and Dr Karthik K Raichurkar.

“Paediatric transplants are very fulfilling although technically extremely challenging. Generally, children can undergo liver transplants of two varieties – deceased donor split liver transplant where a donated liver is divided into 2 parts, larger part going to an adult and the smaller one to a child and the other type is a living donor transplant where a loved one donates a part of their liver,” Dr Lochan said.

The mother had volunteered as a living donor under the Affordable Liver Transplant Initiative (an ILC and Aster CMI joint programme) which also raised 80 per cent of the treatment cost for the child’s treatment through crowdfunding and CSR.

While talking about the treatment of his daughter, Muniswamy said: “We had booked an ambulance from Vellore to Bangalore and it was difficult to find one during the lockdown. The medical team at Aster CMI hospital took all safety measures amidst COVID-19. I was provided with a pass from the hospital, hence I did not face any issue with traveling, also mostly I stayed in the hospital as my child was undergoing the treatment and my wife was the donor. I was advised by doctors to reduce my commute and follow all safety measures to stay safe from COVID-19.”