Nod for unrelated donation came only last week

BENGALURU: She wanted to donate her kidney to a friend, a serving army officer. Her family opposed it and even got the government to intervene. But 48-year-old Varsha Sharma from Rajasthan successfully petitioned the Karnataka high court to get the required clearances for the unrelated organ transplant .Bringing to an end deliberations that went on for nearly four months, Varsha underwent a surgery on Friday (July 27), during which her kidney was transplanted into Col Pankaj Bhargava at Columbia Asia hospital.Anil Srivatsav, himself a kidney donor and founder of Gift of Life Adventure Foundation, was in touch with Col Bhargava for the past one year and was instrumental in Varsha taking her fight to court. He hopes the case will make the state authorisation committee more open to look into unrelated organ transplants.“I am not sure if cases of unrelated donors will increase with Varsha’s case, but what matters is how the committee reacts to such things,” he said.Varsha was unavailable for comment as she is still recovering in the hospital. TOI has learnt she started preparing herself for the donation since October 2017 and has shed 21kg. However, opposition from within the family was a hurdle for Varsha.On April 10, the health and family welfare department sent a letter to the state authorisation committee and hospitals with authorised transplant panels to put on hold her intended donation. TOI reported the same on April 19. In May, Varsha petitioned the high court seeking quashing of the government communication and pleaded the expedition of the process to grant approval for the transplant.Despite HC ordering the panel to dispose of the case within a day, the committee sat on it for more than a month and gave its approval only last week.Dr Bhanu Murthy, chairperson of the committee, admitted there were administrative lapses in issuing the approval in Varsha’s case as the old committee’s two-year term was over. “We told the court the same, after which the government ordered the old committee could function till the selection of the new one. After the order, we approved Varsha’s case and 10 others,” said Murthy. There was a delay in police verification and also in getting family trees of the donor and recipient, he added.The committee even recorded the statement of Varsha’s sister who opposed the transplant. “Her sister wrote to us stating her objection and we took note of it. However, that wasn’t a problem as Varsha is an adult and declared before the panel that there was no exchange of money between the willing donor and the recipient and she was doing it out of love and affection,” he said.