In 2015, when Salvi Patel, a native of Ahmedabad, left to Australia to pursue her MBA, the possibilities seemed endless, and coming to Chennai, that too for treatment, was the last thing on her mind. However, within eight months of joining her course in Perth, she was diagnosed with a serious heart disease.
Salvi, now 24, was put on medication and travelled back home. But in August 2016, she decided to go back to Australia to resume her studies. She switched courses and universities, and later, shifted to Melbourne. But shortly after, the breathing problems started again. “At the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, they told me my heart was in its last stages and that a transplant was the only option,” she said. For the previously healthy young woman, this was a nightmare.
“I was crying every day at one point. I had gone to so many hospitals by then. People in India would keep asking me questions. I was told I won’t be able to travel, marry or live a normal life. I myself decided that if I couldn’t have a good life, what was the point of surgery? But my parents supported me throughout,” she said.
Vital intervention
In February, K.M. Cherian, chairman and CEO, Frontier Lifeline Hospital in Chennai, received an email from an old colleague and friend. “Prof. David McGiffin, the director of cardiothoracic surgery and transplantation at Alfred Health, wrote to me about Salvi’s case, and said she urgently needed a heart transplant and asked if we could help. He said that all medical repatriation expenses would be borne by the hospital,” said Dr. Cherian. The chances of Salvi getting a heart in India, he said, were much higher than in Australia.
On March 9, Salvi was in Chennai, flown in on a commercial flight, accompanied by a doctor and nurse. “Alfred Hospital supported and organised all this for me,” she said. Salvi was in bad shape when she came in, as she was on a supporting pump, said Dr. Cherian. Soon after she came in, the hospital put her in touch with a former patient who had undergone a heart transplant in 2009. Conversations with her convinced Salvi that life after a transplant could be normal.
Three weeks later, the hospital received an alert about a donor from Vellore. A team from the hospital went to harvest the organ, and the heart travelled by road to Chennai, and was then successfully transplanted on to Salvi on March 30.
Salvi and her family are raising funds to meet the cost of the surgery and other medical costs in Australia, online. Just days post surgery, she is keen to head back to Australia.
Dr. Cherian suspects Salvi had viral myocarditis, a disease in which the heart muscle becomes inflamed and damaged, possibly due to a viral infection. “If she had remained in Melbourne, she would not have survived,” he said.
