Another ‘live’ heart on its way to Chennai

A two-year-and-ten-month old boy is giving life to another child after his death, for his vital organs will now help save an ailing patient.

In a repeat of what the city witnessed in September when the heart of a woman was transported to Chennai to save a 60-year-old ailing patient, another heart from Bengaluru is being sent to the same hospital. But this time, the heart is being sent from Manipal Hospital here.

Medical Director of Manipal Hospital Sudarshan Ballal said that the boy, who was admitted to the hospital on Old Airport Road on December 14, suffered a hypoxia brain damage and was declared brain dead on December 18. As the state did not have any recipient in the boy’s age group, the Zonal Coordination Committee for Karnataka (ZCCK), the nodal agency to facilitate organ transplant in the state, identified a recipient in Chennai’s Fortis Maslar.

The ‘live’ heart from the donor is being transported in a blue box in an Air Ambulance from HAL Airport to Chennai. The jurisdictional traffic police, led by M.N.B.R. Prasad, are coordinating the organ transport by an ambulance from the hospital to the Hal Airport. Police ensured zero-clearance for the heart to reach HAL Airport as soon as possible.

The heart is stored in a cold storage organ transplant solution that retains its capacity to beat even after being retrieved from the body. The organ has a crucial six-hour margin during which it has to be retrieved, transported and transplanted.

Doctors said that the heart will be transplanted in a two-and-a-half-year-old child in Chennai.