Bhubaneswar: A 16-month-old boy from Bhubaneswar became Odisha’s youngest organ donor, giving new life to two patients, an AIIMS-Bhubaneswar official said on Monday. The parents of Janmesh Lenka made the courageous decision that turned their personal tragedy into a beacon of hope for others.

Janmesh was admitted to the paediatric department of AIIMS-Bhubaneswar on February 12 after inhaling a foreign object, causing a blockage in his airway and leading to difficulty in breathing. Despite receiving immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and the relentless efforts of the intensive care team to stabilise him over the following two weeks, the child was declared brain dead on March 1, the official said.

Recognising the possibility of giving the gift of life to others, the medical team at AIIMS counselled the grieving parents about organ donation. They consented, allowing their child’s organs to be used for life-saving transplants, he added.

Following the consent, a multidisciplinary team of surgeons and transplant coordinators swiftly facilitated the retrieval and transplantation process. The liver was successfully retrieved by the gastro-surgery team led by Dr. Brahmadutt Patnaik and swas transported to the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) in New Delhi, where it was transplanted into a child suffering from end-stage liver failure, the official said.

The kidneys were retrieved and transplanted en-bloc into a single adolescent patient at AIIMS-Bhubaneswar. This complex surgical procedure was successfully performed under the leadership of Dr Prasant Nayak from the Urology department, he said.

This was only the second instance of en-bloc kidney transplantation in the State, a highly specialised surgical approach where both kidneys from a paediatric donor are transplanted together into a single recipient.

“In yet another landmark achievement, AIIMS-Bhubaneswar facilitated multiorgan transplantation from Janmesh, who became Odisha’s youngest organ donor,” the institute said.

The Executive Director of AIIMS Bhubaneswar, Dr Ashutosh Biswas, commended the transplant coordination team and the medical professionals involved, highlighting their relentless efforts in ensuring the successful execution of the organ retrieval and transplantation process.

He also extended his heartfelt gratitude to the parents for their extraordinary generosity, acknowledging their selfless decision in a moment of profound grief.