KOCHI: It’s a month since P E Binu (44) took the path of organ donation and that too for an unknown recipient. Today he is hale and hearty and is happy to know that the recipient, Sheela of Punnapra North Panchayat in Alappuzha, too is fine.

Binu who is now the Congress block secretary in Thalavoor in Pathanapuram, had been the additional PA to K B Ganesh Kumar when he was forest and sports minister.

He has been thinking about organ donation for the past 10 years and got in touch with Fr Davis Chirammel who is the chairman, Kidney Federation of India, two years ago.

But there were problems in cross-matching with the people in need and finally his matched with Sheela, who is from a poor background and was doing three dialyses a week.

Sheela’s husband is a headload worker and the couple has two children. A people’s committee in her panchayat raised the money for her operation while Rs 3 lakh came from the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.

Prior to the kidney transplant on November 18, a hip replacement surgery also was done on her.

Together a total of Rs 8 lakh was spent on her two operations and today she is residing in a rented facility near the private hospital in Ernakulam where the kidney transplant was performed. It will take one-and-a-half months more for her to move to her native place as she is under observation now.

“My message to the world is that organ donation should be made a movement. More public servants should come forward to donate organs,” said Binu.