by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich for the Jerusalem Post

Two families donated the organs of their brain-dead loved ones over the weekend, resulting in eight organ transplants in hospitals around the country. All are doing well.

The organs were removed at Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem's Ein Kerem and at Assaf Harofeh Medical Center in Tzrifin.

The two donors were a 19- year-old man killed in a road accident, and a 48-year-old woman who died from a brain aneurysm a few hours before her daughter was supposed to have a bat mitzva party.

A heart from the Hadassah donor was transplanted into 27 year old Dikla Cohen at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer. Fifteen years ago, her father had undergone a heart transplant to replace his own heart, which was defective due to a genetic mutation that his daughter also inherited. He died a year after his surgery because he stopped taking anti-rejection drugs.

The Sheba transplant surgeon, Prof. Jay Lavie, performed both Cohen's procedure and her father's.

Cohen had been hospitalized at Sheba for several months and been unable to take care of her young son all that time.

Meanwhile, a liver went to a 66 year old woman who was called in from Eilat and flown to Tel Aviv for surgery at Sourasky Medical Center. A kidney was transplanted into a nine year old girl at Schneider Children's Medical Center in Petah Tikva, while the other went to a 35 year old woman at Hadassah.

The organs "harvested" at the Tzrifin hospital were transplanted in three medical centers - the Rabin Medical Center - Beilinson Campus in Petah Tikva, Sourasky and Haifa's Rambam Medical Center. Two lungs went to a 37 year old woman, a liver to a 35 year old man, a kidney to a 56 year old man and the other kidney to a 48 year old man.