Gift of life: City survivors share how organ donation rewrote their destiny

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar

It’s one of the rarest second chances life offers the moment when a stranger’s decision keeps another heart beating or another pair of lungs breathing.

On world organ donation day, city’s doctors, transplant coordinators, and survivors are urging citizens to take that decision to pledge their organs calling it “the greatest gift one can give.” ZTCC data paints a stark reality: every year, over 400 patients in the city await transplants for vital organs liver, kidney, heart, lungs, cornea, and more yet only a small fraction receive them. This week, local hospitals and NGOs have launched awareness drives, camps, and registration initiatives to turn intent into action. Amid the statistics stand stories that breathe hope people whose lives would have ended if not for a donor family’s “yes.”

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CA Gautam Nandavat (68)

For CA Gautam Nandavat, 14 August 2018 is not just a date it’s his rebirth. Diagnosed with a 6 cm cancerous tumour in his liver, doctors warned that surgery was impossible without a transplant. “If 30% of the liver remains healthy, it can regenerate but my tumour left no scope,” he recalls. His blood group, O , made finding a match easier, and soon a brain-dead patient’s family at Ciigma Hospital gifted him the organ that saved his life. Seven years on, Nandavat lives without major complications, cherishing every moment. “Without that family’s decision, I wouldn’t be here,” he says, voice thick with gratitude. On World Organ Donation Day, he urges families to pledge: “Don’t hesitate your decision can mean someone’s tomorrow.” His journey from a life-threatening diagnosis to recovery stands as living proof that a stranger’s act can rewrite destiny.

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M. K. Deshmukh

In 2013, retired education officer M. K. Deshmukh’s heart was failing. Cardiomyopathy had reduced his Left Ventricular Mass to just 35 well below the healthy 60–70 and by 2018, it had plunged to 22. “I could barely walk,” he recalls. Mumbai doctors gave him five years to live; by 2018, time had run out. With Mumbai’s transplant list full with the waiting period is over three months, he turned to Chennai’s Fortis Malar Hospital, where Dr. K. R. Balakrishnan had performed over 500 heart transplants. On 6 January 2019, a 36-year-old donor’s heart gave him a new life. “Dr. Hardas had told me I had 4–6 months left,” he says. “Even then, a donor was not guaranteed.” He remembers a political leader ahead of him on the list who died due to post-surgery infection proof of how fragile second chances can be. Today, every heartbeat reminds him of the stranger who saved him, and he urges more families to say “yes” to donation.