Wives swap kidneys to save hubbies11 Feb 2008, 0340 hrs IST,Hemant Kumar Rout,TNN
BALASORE: A Hindu and a Muslim woman have swapped their kidneys to save their husbands.
Said to be the first ever inter-religion cross-donor kidney transplantation in the country, the double gift of life has come as a ray of hope in a country rocked by a horrific kidney racket.
Harekrushna Bhanja (48) and his wife Kalpana from Orissa's Balasore ran into Mohd Sayeed and Saira from Cuttack at Manjulaben Kidney Hospital, a unit of Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences in Kolkata.
Both Bhanja and Sayeed were at death's door, suffering irreversible renal failure. The one hope was a kidney transplant, but Bhanja had A blood group and his wife B. Donors weren't in sight. The blood groups of Sayeed and Saira on the other hand were just the opposite.
Chief nephrologist Deepak Shankar Ray seized the miraculous coincidence.
"Since the women could not donate their organs to their respective husbands, I arranged a meeting between them for a cross-donation and they agreed. This is an extremely unusual case and I wonder if something like this has happened anywhere in the world," Ray said.
Formalities like getting clearances from the two state governments came through in a jiffy for this unprecedented surgery. The surgeries were successfully performed on January 23. Hospital sources said Sayeed has been discharged and Bhanja will go home in a day or two.
"It all happened coincidentally. I feel I have seen the hand of god. When I was admitted to the hospital last February, I never thought that I would meet Sayeed and our wives would save our lives," said Bhanja, a lawyer and father of three.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Wives_swap_kidneys_to_save_hubbies/articleshow/2772165.cms
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