New Delhi: As brain-dead Sandhya Gautam was taken into the operation theatre of Apollo Hospital to retrieve her liver, doctors and nurses lined the corridor in a show of respect. In death, the 32-year-old had become a savior for a 45-year-old man from Maharashtra and a 49-year-old man from Assam.

Sandhya was declared brain-dead last week. Her father, Jai Bhagwan Jatav, immediately consented to donate her organs. Jatav said that his daughter was very lively and always wanted to help people.

Some of his family members and friends opposed him. They said that he should wait till Sandhya’s heart was beating. The wait continued for almost a week. By that time the other organs were no longer fit to be transplanted. Her liver was still healthy. So, doctors decided to split and transplant it in two adults.

Dr Nirav Goyal, Senior Consultant, liver transplant, at the hospital said that both the recipients had been on the waiting list for more than a year. Doctors realized that Sandhya’s liver was healthy and could be split into two. Therefore, they used it for two transplants successfully.

Jatav’s decision to donate all his daughter’s organs was a courageous one. He had been watching Sandhya fight chronic kidney disease for more than four years. She was diagnosed with a kidney infection in 2014 which was managed with medication till March. She had to be admitted to Apollo Hospital on March 18 and tests showed that both her kidneys had stopped working. She was put on dialysis thrice a week. However, she wasn’t comfortable with that. Jatav mentioned that they were still waiting to find a matching donor in the family or outside when she suffered brain hemorrhage.

Doctors stated that lack of awareness about brain death is a major cause of India’s poor record in organ donation. The kind of resistance that Jatav faced is quite common. Most people think that their loved ones can be revived till their heart is working. In the US and UK, around 40% of families agree to donate the organs of a brain-dead patient; however, the rate of such donations is less than 2% in India.

Jatav stated that many family members and friends said that they should wait for a miracle to happen. Some also suggested that they should go to spiritual healers. Jatav strongly condemned such beliefs. He added that donating the organs when there is no hope left, scientifically, is the wisest thing to do.