Polio-affected woman donates kidney to granddaughter

Mohali: A wheelchair-bound grandmother from a village in Punjab's Sangrur district has donated a kidney to her teenaged granddaughter to save her life, a leading doctor said Thursday.

Suffering from life-threatening kidney failure, Rupinder Kaur, 19, is recuperating at a private hospital here after a recent kidney transplant.

Priyadarshi Ranjan, chief of kidney transplant surgery and advanced urological laparoscopy, said that the young woman, a resident of village Janal in Sangrur district, was suffering from end-stage kidney failure.

"Rupinder would only survive if she received a kidney donation. We examined her parents and other family members for a compatible kidney donor, but could get none. It was her wheelchair-bound polio-afflicted 53-year-old grandmother Jarnail Kaur who stepped in to donate. Tests found her to be a perfectly compatible match for donation," Ranjan said.

"The surgery was technically challenging because of the abnormal body structure caused by polio-induced postural defect in Jarnail Kaur, but it was uneventful. It is probably the first of its kind case in the world, where a polio-afflicted donor has donated her kidney," Ranjan said.

He said that Jarnail Kaur had proven that even a debilitating condition like polio need not be a hurdle in organ donation.

"Organ donation today has become one of the safest operations, and laparoscopy has made it simple and aesthetically pleasing to donors. Kidney donors have a very healthy recovery, and are as normal as any one else," he said.