Manu, in a subconscious gesture, held his wife’s hand gently. It was a tiny, fleeting move, but it was poignantly beautiful. It showed the integration, in his mind, of another’s hands in his body.
Transplantation of Hands and Faces is not life-saving. Hands and faces are highly visible parts of the body, and closely related to the identity of the individual. This makes their transplantation difficult.
A team of doctors from Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS), Kochi achieve a rare feat of the first successful double hand transplant in the nation and any developing country till date. Watch their story.
The hopes of performing India’s first hand transplant looked bleak as several brain-dead patient’s relatives had turned down our request. “Take everything else,” they had said. “Not the hands.” We had become resigned to the fact that we may never do a hand transplant.
