A heart harvested from a 15-year-old, who was declared brain dead at Fortis Hospital in Bengaluru, was used to perform a transplant on a 63-year-old man from Bihar admitted to Fortis Escorts Heart Institute (FEHI), Delhi.
A green corridor from the Bengaluru hospital to the airport there helped cover a distance of 45 km in 40 minutes.
23 km in 19 min
Another green corridor was created between IGI Airport and the hospital, which helped cover 23 km in 19 minutes. FEHI’s Head of Advanced Heart Failure Programme Vishal Rastogi said the patient was admitted multiple times with symptoms of heart failure. The surgery was conducted by a team headed by Z.S. Meharwal, Director, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, FEHI. After receiving a call from the National Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation regarding availability of a potential donor, the team from FEHI coordinated with NOTTO Consultant Coordination Suresh Badhan for retrieval of the heart.
Dr. Meharwal said: “Heart transplant is a critical surgery where timing is a key factor. There is a window of five hours, in which we had to retrieve the heart from Bengaluru, transport it to FEHI and perform the surgery. Our retrieval team coordinated closely with the transplant team at FEHI. We are grateful to NOTTO for their continuous support to organ donation and the transplant programme. We are also grateful to the traffic police of Bengaluru and Delhi, the Airports Authority of India and the airline for minimising the transport time.”
