Doctors looking for liver donor for Deshmukh

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Doctors treating Union Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh for a serious liver ailment are looking for a liver donor to carry out a transplant on him, hospital sources said on Tuesday.

An attempt to harvest liver from a brain dead donor from a government hospital here had proved futile as the man died before doctors could operate on him on Monday night, they said.

A team from Global Hospitals, where Deshmukh was admitted on August 6, had planned to retrieve the liver from the 31-year-old donor at the hospital, but he died, forcing them to look for another donor, the sources said.

"The hospital is looking for a liver donor," they said. Asked whether they were desperately looking for a liver, they said, "In a way, yes."

The 67-year-old former Maharashtra Chief Minister had shown signs of improvement and been on and off the ventilator before being prepared for a transplant, the sources said.

Deshmukh was brought here from Mumbai in an air ambulance in a critical condition.