CHENNAI: Union minister Vilasrao Deshmukh is likely to get the liver and kidney of a 31-year-old driver, who was declared brain dead at the Government General Hospital (GH) in Chennai on Monday. The state cadaver transplant registry allotted the organs to the minister late in the evening. At the time of going to print, a team from Global Hospitals was at the GH to retrieve the organs from the donor.

If everything goes well, a team will transplant the organs to Deshmukh through a surgical process that could go on for more than 12 hours.

The donor was hit by an ambulance on Saturday near Kovalam on East Coast Road, and suffered severe head injuries. On the same day, the hospital flagged Deshmukh’s case as a ‘super ultra emergency’.

The 67-year-old minister, diagnosed with liver cancer, was flown to Chennai by an air ambulance last Tuesday.

Ahead of surgeons who would wheel in Vilasrao Deshmukh into an operation theatre at Global Hospital late on Monday would be a long night – and maybe half a day – of the complicated task of transplanting a liver and a kidney into the 67-year-old Union minister. Behind them was a longer procedure of arranging for the organs.

Much before the organs were to be harvested from a 31-year-old van driver who was declared brain-dead at the Government General Hospital on Monday afternoon, a flurry of activities began in the health circles. Over the weekend, Vilasrao was readied for the transplant, though surgeons were not very happy with the stability of his system to undergo the long, complicated process.

The first signs of this preparation came on Saturday when Vilasrao was moved out of the ICU to an isolated unit to prevent further infections. Over the weekend, several things happened side by side. Vilasrao was registered with the Tamil Nadu organ registry as a hyper ultra emergency case in need of a liver and a kidney. Doctors said it was a tough case as more than 200 patients in need of a liver had registered ahead of Vilasrao. A hyper-ultra-critical case, however, gets priority, but there was no organ available yet.

Simultaneously, Vilasrao’s son Riteish Deshmukh was registered as a part-liver donor with the authorities, but surgeons said Vilasrao needed a full liver, from a brain-dead patient. On Monday morning, an alert from the Government General Hospital said that a 31-year-old man who met with a road accident on Saturday, might be brain dead. At 2.30pm, the hospital confirmed this. His blood group (B+ve) matched with that of Vilasrao. A flurry of activities followed. The family, which was initially unwilling to part with the organs, had to be convinced. There were approvals to be got even if the family agreed, since there should be no other claimant from other hospitals.

Everyone finally agreed by around 9pm. While a team of surgeons from Global Hospitals arrived to harvest the organs around 10pm, others at Global Hospitals prepared Vilasrao. After the harvest, the organs have to be taken by road, from GH to Global Hospitals, a distance of about 25km.

Hours before the organ registry allotted the liver and kidney to Vilasrao, a transplant surgeon told TOI: “Even now his condition is not stable for a surgery. But we can’t wait further. Cadaver organs aren’t readily available and it has a long waiting list. We are hoping he would be fit by the time the organ comes by.”

Deshmukh was flown down by an air ambulance from Mumbai last Tuesday. He was diagnosed with liver cancer and multiple organ failure. More than 250 organs have been harvested from braindead patients since Tamil Nadu set up the cadaver organ registry in September 2008. The allotment rule is broken only when there is an emergency of a patient’s condition irreversibly going down rapidly. “This is the first time we have a VIP on the waitlist,” said a health department official.