After MiD DAY reported about the predicament of Ejaz Bhat and his relatives, help started coming in, and Rs 11 lakh has been collected for the procedure
Andheri resident Ejaz Bhat may get a new lease of life after all. The 34-year-old, who needs to undergo a liver re-transplantation by December 24 urgently, requires Rs 20 lakh for the procedure. Doctors fear that Bhat might go into a coma if the surgery is not carried out by the aforementioned date.
Ejaz Bhat, with wife Rukhsar. File pic
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After MiD DAY reported about Bhat and his relatives’ despair (‘Mumbai man’s family struggling to get Rs 20 lakh for fresh liver transplant’), help started coming in, and Rs 11 lakh was collected. The family had already managed to accumulate Rs 6 lakh by selling all its valuables. Now, the transplantation procedure will go ahead as per schedule on December 24.
“We are thankful to MiD DAY readers for readily coming forward and aiding us, because of which what was seeming impossible at one point, is about to become a reality now,” said Bhat’s wife Rukhsar. The couple was married in December 2009, and Bhat had to be operated upon at Delhi in May 2010, after being diagnosed with fatty liver and excess iron content.
On that occasion, the patient not only managed the cost of the operation and hospital charges, but also took care of the travelling expenses a total expenditure of Rs 40 lakh, including the costs for a three-month stay in the Capital. But, even after the operation, Bhat began falling ill frequently. It was later discovered that the partial liver, donated by Rukhsar, had been rejected by his body. Bhat was in need of a second transplant to stay alive.
“Though the doctors have termed it a risky operation, now we can at least afford it, which has given us a lot of hope. We are very thankful to MiD DAY readers, who are our saviours,” said Parveen Shaikh, Bhat’s mother-in-law. She added, “Our relatives, who had promised us financial help, haven’t turned up till now. So, we still need to arrange Rs 4 lakh more.”
The family had tried asking for donation at many religious places, but failed. Bhat’s relatives claim that people assume a person in need of liver transplantation must have been a smoker or an alcoholic. “The doctors have called us on December 22 for some legal formalities before the operation,” said Rukhsar.
“We have already made many mistakes by unwittingly giving him immunity boosters in the past. This time we will take extra precautions, and see to it that he recovers soon. We have to spend Rs 60,000 per month for the medicines, since matters got worse after we gave him Ayurvedic medication after consulting a local doctor to improve his immunity, which counteracted the immunosuppressants he had initially been prescribed,” Shaikh lamented.
The procedure will be performed at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, Andheri. “The surgery is a complex one, and it is better if the patient gets operated soon. We will have a final meeting on December 22, after which we will conduct the procedure,” said Dr Vinay Kumaran, head of liver transplant department at the institute.
Wife had donated part of her liver
Ejaz and Rukshar got married in December 2009 and he had to be operated soon after in May 2010 after being diagnosed with fatty liver and excess iron content. As he still held a decent job, Bhat, a resident of Andheri, not only managed the cost of the operation and hospital charges but also took care of the travelling expenses from Mumbai to Delhi (where the operation took place).
His wife took the brave decision to donate a part of her liver to save her husband. But after three years, Bhat discovered that his body was beginning to reject the new liver and that he needs a fresh transplant. But soon after the operation he started falling sick often. “My husband would catch cold and fever easily. So we started giving him immunity boosters as we thought that he was falling ill due to low immunity. It was only a year back that a doctor told us that we weren’t supposed to give him immunity boosters,” explained Rukhsar.
Rs 20 L
Total cost of the liver transplant procedure
Rs 6 L
The amount generated by the family by selling all its valuablesu00a0
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