Pune: Doctors harvest bones from deceased; donor a former Army serviceman

When the former serviceman’s body was brought to Sassoon Hospital on August 25, the eye donation counsellor, Manisha Pandhare, requested the family to donate the eyes.

But Pandhare noticed something else. She sensed that the family was willing to donate more than just the eyes, and she approached Akash Salve, the transplant coordinator at MOHAN Foundation, an NGO that promotes donation
of organs and tissues from the deceased.

The MOHAN Foundation has placed its transplant coordinator at Sassoon Hospital, as per an MoU with Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) for augmenting the deceased organ donation programme, Gokhale said.

A team of orthopaedic surgeons at Sassoon Hospital retrieved a few ribs and the iliac crest. The MOHAN Foundation transported the bones from Pune to the bone bank at Tata Memorial Hospital.

Jaya Jairam, project manager at MOHAN Foundation, said a lot of families who are counselled on donating skin, eyes and bones are not comfortable with the concept, as they believe the body will be disfigured. In this case, the doctors made a central incision in the body to retrieve the bones.

Only a few ribs were retrieved so that the rib cage would not collapse and the body was not disfigured. Care was taken to ensure that the body was not disfigured in any way, doctors said, adding that retrieval of the iliac crest only causes a slight compression.

“While the public has opened up to the concept of eye donation, there is a lack of awareness and discomfort about donating other tissues and organs like skin and bones,” said Jairam.