Delhi hospital offers gang-rape victim free intestinal transplant

Zeenews Bureau

New Delhi: While the anger over the recent gang-rape of a para-medic student in a moving bus in Delhi spilled onto the streets, a city hospital on Friday offered the 23-year-old girl free intestinal transplant. Privately-owned Sir Ganga Ram Hospital also said that it would bear the cost of all subsequent treatment. Reports said officials of the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital have informed BD Nathani, medical superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital, about the same. The victim is currently being treated at the government-run Safdarjung Hospital. Doctors treating the woman said yesterday their focus was on providing her the best treatment as her life was at grave risk. She underwent surgery to remove a gangrenous section of intestine, and there was risk of infection. "Moved by the plight of the young intern at a private hospital in the city, who was training to be a physiotherapist, we have offered her free treatment. Sir Ganga Ram Hospital has performed India`s first and only living donor intestinal transplant which has been reported in a peer reviewed journal this year," DS Rana, chairman (board of management), Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, said. Samiran Nundy, chairman, department of surgical gastroenterology and organ transplantation at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, said intestinal transplant is the only course of treatment that would offer the victim the chance of a functional intestines. Doctors said an intestinal graft could be obtained either from a brain-dead donor or from a living related donor. "Transplant can be life-saving in patients with intestinal failure and failure of parenteral nutrition. However, getting an organ from a deceased donor is hard in India. The living donor option also has a few advantages. Both these options could be available for the victim once her condition stabilises," said Naimish Mehta, transplant surgeon at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. Mehta added: "In a normal individual, the length of the small intestine is approximately 600 cm, of which 200 cm of intestine can be removed for transplantation without any adverse effect on the living donor. In contrast, whole of the intestine from the brain-dead donor can be used for intestinal transplantation." The gang-rape occurred on Sunday night after the woman and her male friend boarded a private bus in South Delhi to go home after watching a movie. The young woman was brutally assaulted in the moving bus. Her male friend who tried to save her also was beaten up by the rapists. Both were dumped by the roadside near the domestic airport after some 40 minutes of ordeal. (With IANS inputs)