Mumbai:
48-year-old Umesh Dedhia generally towers over most people. Over six feet tall, this shopkeeper from south-central Mumbai is all smiles sitting in the crowded waiting area of Nephrologist Dr Viswanath Billa's consultancy at Shushrut hospital in Chembur.
"I have got a new lease of life," he tells with a big grin. "I could not have taken another day of Dialysis."
Dedhia is a father of three. His world came crashing down when three years ago both his kidneys failed.
"Kidney failure runs in my family, many extended family members have diabetes and that leads to kidney problems. I have lost relatives to kidney failure," he says.
His wife was willing to donate her kidney but the blood groups did not match. "I have a rare blood group, "O", and I was told by doctors that it was difficult to get a kidney, that's when I signed up for the Donor Kidney registry," he explains.
Dedhia was operated on June 25 in a domino kidney transplant, and his life is now irrevocably linked to 36-year-old barber Arif Mohamad, who lives deep inside Mumbai's Ganesh Murti slum in Colaba.
Arif's wife Shamsunissa donated her kidney to a young girl in Rajasthan and her father in return donated his kidney to Dedhia. Dedhia's wife's kidney went to another stranger, leading to India's first domino transplant.
A chain of five kidney donors and as many recipients were operated simultaneously across three Mumbai hospitals -- Bombay Hospital, Hiranandani Hospital and Hinduja Hospital.
A complex process that otherwise would have meant an endless wait for a matching kidney, now simplified by a data gathering registry - Astra. The doctors hope the success of the domino transplant will mean that many more people, those who need a kidney and those willing to donate it, will register with them.
The registry and the domino operation are a brainchild of nephrologist Dr Viswanath Billa. Explaining the potential of domino transplants, he says, "Domino transplant has opened an avenue for the sub-group of patients who need a kidney, who have a donor, but are incompatible. So by just getting these sub-groups of people into a common pool, leveraging the power of mathematics, we are getting them out of dialysis."
It took 30 months for Dr Billa and the team of doctors to deploy the domino but the results have been worth it.
A domino transplant costs as much as a simple swap of exchange transplant, but it saves more lives. Each of these patients ended up spending around six lakh rupees.
"I could not afford the costs of the transplant, but my doctor was very supportive. He convinced the hospital authorities and I only had to pay a fraction of the total cost," says a relieved Arif Mohamad.