A healthy 20-year-old youth from Thane underwent a rare surgery at Wockhardt Hospital, Mumbai, to donate part of his liver to save his ailing father.

Both the father, Mohammad Jogilkar and son Wasim are now doing well after the successful 18-hour transplant surgery on September 24 by Dr S.K.Mathur, Consultant Liver Transplant Surgeon and his 24-member team of doctors and paramedics at Wockhardt Hospitals.

After discussion with the family, Wasim came forward to donate part of his liver to his father. Both the father and son were examined and evaluated by a specialist team consisting of a cardiologist, nephrologist, pulmonologist, diabetologist and psychiatrist.

“More than 50,000 patients reach end-stage liver disease in India each year, but we have less than 100 liver transplants. It is therefore important that liver transplant surgery assumes momentum in India,” said Dr Mathur. “Many lives are lost today as people are not aware that they can donate part of their liver. With the latest technology and state-of-the-art facilities, we are competent to perform complex transplants at our hospital, but more people should volunteer to donate organs.”

“We have been working on developing expertise in this area ever since we received approval for conducting liver transplants in Mumbai,” Wockhardt Hospitals CEO Vishal Bali said. “We are now establishing a full fledged transplant centre in Mumbai which we will develop into a centre of excellence in India for various organ transplants. Our association with Harvard Medical International will help us benchmark our skills in this field with the world’s best hospitals,” he said.

“We have created a multi-speciality team, a dedicated liver ICU (intensive care unit) and a team of specialised nurses and technicians to ensure a high success rate in liver transplant surgery,” Dr Ravindra Karanjekar, Head of Wockhardt Hospitals, Mumbai, said.

Suhas Aradhye, Head, Marketing, Wockhardt Hospitals, said, “Usually, organ donation is limited to kidney and eye. But there are many patients, including children, who urgently require organs like liver. Our specialised hospital can intervene effectively at the end-stage of liver diseases. We have a dedicated team of transplant doctors.”

Wockhardt Hospitals’ consultants and surgeons are recognised both within India and across the world for their pioneering contributions in advanced super speciality treatment. The Harvard team has established Wockhardt’s core nursing practices in the areas of intensive care, operating rooms and ward care. Experts from Harvard periodically conduct training programmes for Wockhardt Hospital personnel. This association with Harvard for quality-driven healthcare delivery has enabled Wockhardt Hospitals in Mumbai to earn the distinction of being the first super speciality hospital in South Asia to achieve accreditation from the Joint Commission International (JCI), the international arm of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organisations, which evaluates standards of US hospitals. It is amongst 71 hospitals around the world to win this recognition. The accreditation requires a hospital to comply with almost 1,300 measurable standards.

Wockhardt Hospital is the leading provider of super speciality healthcare in India. It currently runs a cluster of super speciality hospitals in Mumbai dedicated to cardiology, neurology, orthopaedics, ophthalmology and minimal access surgery. It runs dedicated super speciality hospitals in Bangalore, Nagpur, Hyderabad and a super speciality kidney hospital in Kolkata. The group is currently establishing super speciality hospitals in Rajkot, Surat and Bhopal.