Rare interfaith kidney swap seen in Mumbai

Rafik Shah, a resident of Kalyan and Rahul Yadav, an ayurvedic physician from Ghatkopar, first met a year ago at the dialysis unit of KEM Hospital in Parel.

When they departed the hospital on Wednesday, they did so with a special connection: the doctor had a kidney from Shah’s wife Khushnuma, and Shah had a kidney from Yadav’s mother Girija.

On December 15 last year, these uncommon interfaith transplants took place at KEM Hospital.

Interfaith kidney swap transplants have also been performed on a few prior occasions, according to a senior doctor at KEM Hospital Parel.

An organ swap occurs when two families are unable to donate to a member of their own family due to a blood group mismatch. The match between Shah and Yadav was found in the nephrology department’s logbook on such discordant pairs.

Since her husband Rafik Shah, a civil contractor in Kalyan, was diagnosed with kidney failure two years ago, Khushnuma wanted to donate blood; however, she has an A+ blood group and he has a B+ blood group. Though she was a B+ compared to his A+, Girija was equally determined to save her son Yadav, whose kidney problems were first discovered when he was seven years old.

 The senior doctor further continued that after counselling the families, they discovered that both of them could find healthy donors, despite their initial pain. Faith was not a problem.

Mumbai performed the nation’s first swap transplant in 2006; it involved a Hindu-Muslim couple as well. A few more interfaith transplants from Bengaluru, Jaipur, and Chandigarh have occurred since then.