Second organ donor in a week, saves 2 lives in Goa, 1 in Indore

Panaji: In the second deceased organ donation of 2025 and this week, the wife of a 48-year-old man from Odisha, who was declared brain dead, agreed to donate his organs, giving a new lease of life to three people.
Ajay Giri, a father of two who was a staffer working in the maintenance department of Manipal Hospital, Dona Paula, for around a decade, suffered a brain haemorrhage and collapsed. The hospital then initiated the process for getting brain death certification for the man.
The state organ and tissue transplant organisation (SOTTO) allotted his kidneys to a 34-year-old male recipient at Healthway Hospital, Old Goa and a 42-year-old female recipient at Goa Medical College, Bambolim.
The liver was allocated by the regional organ and tissue transplant organisation (ROTTO) (West) to a 67-year-old recipient at Vishesh Jupiter Hospital, Indore.
Giri had a medical condition which made his lungs unsuitable for transplantation.
His heart couldn’t be allocated because the logistics of the allocated hospital did not match the retrieval time (heart and lungs have to be transplanted within 4 to 6 hours) and because he had a previous heart condition.
Three green corridors were created on Thursday afternoon to ensure rapid transportation of the donated organs to Dabolim airport and the two hospitals in Goa.
Giri’s act triggered a coordinated effort between Manipal Hospital, SOTTO, and transplant hospitals across the state and region.
This is the second deceased organ donation at Manipal Hospital following the donation by B Sadashiv Rao’s family in 2018. It is the 7th donation of SOTTO Goa.
SOTTO Goa joint director Dr Preeti Varghese said the two deceased organ donations back to back, with five organs donated in the first and three organs in the second, are a first for the state.
“That these deceased organ donations have happened in a smooth and transparent manner should be able to build faith in people to step forward to say yes to organ donation instead of being sceptical about it and harbouring doubts without any basis,” she said.
This last donation was unique as the organs harvested at a private hospital were allocated to patients from other private hospitals and in govt hospital too, she said.