Devananda, a minor girl from Kerala’s Thrissur district, has been allowed by the Kerala High Court to go ahead with her mission to save her ailing father’s life by donating a portion of her liver. The high court has allowed the 17-year-old’s plea seeking exemption in her age to be a donor as prescribed under Rule 18 of the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Rules, 2014.
Her father Pratheesh P G is suffering from Decompensated Chronic Liver Disease with Hepatocellular Carcinoma, a non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The only means to save the life of her father is to replace the damaged liver through transplantation surgery. From among the near relatives of the patient, only his daughter’s liver was found to be matching.
In her plea, she had also sought direction to the hospital authority to perform their medical obligations under Rule 18 of the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Rules, 2014 and other provisions of the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994, by treating her as an adult if she is medically fit to be a donor.
The court gave the judgement, considering a report submitted by an expert committee constituted by the Kerala State Organ Tissue Transplant Organisation (K-SOTTO), which was directed by it to study Devananda’s case.
The committee relied on the facts that there were no other options other than a transplantation and the donor is fully aware of the consequences of her decision to donate a portion of her liver out of compassion to her father and she has taken the decision with her free will and without any coercion or compulsion.
