Zeenews Bureau
Chennai: Efforts to save union minister Vilasrao Deshmukh’s life suffered a major setback after a brain-dead man whose liver and kidney were to be transplanted, died hours before the transplant.
The 31-year-old man was a school van driver. He met with a road accident on Saturday while he was riding a bike on East Coast road. He was declared brain-dead by doctors at the government general hospital.
He was identified as a possible donor by doctors of the Global Hospitals where 67-year-old Deshmukh is awaiting a transplant after he was diagnosed with liver cancer, a newspaper reported.
The driver’s family gave consent for donating his organs but later retracted, however, before they could be brought around, the man died of cardiac arrest.
The former Maharashtra Chief Minister was brought here from Mumbai in an air ambulance. A team doctors of several specialties, including noted liver transplant surgeon Dr Mohamed Rela, are treating Deshmukh, who is on life-support systems.
First Published: Tuesday, August 14, 2012, 15:02