A team from a private hospital in the city flew to Bangalore to harvest a heart from a brain-dead patient there, flew back and transplanted the organ into a patient from Maharashtra.
According to doctors at Fortis Malar Hospital, the recipient, a 40-year-old man from a village in Maharashtra, had arrived at the hospital about a month ago, with end-stage heart failure.
On Tuesday, a 33-year-old woman at a private hospital in Bangalore was declared brain-dead. As the heart was not going to be used in Karnataka because a match could not be found, a four-member team from Fortis Malar flew to Bangalore and harvested the heart around 1.45 p.m., said K.G. Suresh Rao, head of the cardiac anaesthesiology department at Fortis Malar Hospital.
At 3.22 p.m., the team left Bangalore with the heart on an Air India flight and landed at Chennai airport at 4.22 p.m. It was loaded on to a waiting ambulance at 4.30 p.m. By 4.37 p.m. — after passing 19 traffic lights over 14 km — the heart reached Fortis Malar Hospital.
“We started the surgery as soon as we knew the heart had arrived in Chennai. A heart should be used ideally within four hours, so we were cutting it a little fine, but by 5.30 p.m., the transplanted heart was beating in our patient,” said K. R. Balakrishnan, director, cardiac sciences, Fortis Malar.
By 6 p.m., the operation was completed, and the patient is now doing well, doctors said. He is expected to be discharged in about 10 days. The 40-year-old had been very sick, with worsening jaundice.
“Air India was extremely cooperative. Without them, we could not have done an inter-city procedure on time,” said Dr. Balakrishnan.
The donor, who had met with an accident on August 31 in her hometown in Krishnagiri, had suffered a severe head injury. She was taken to BGS Global Hospital in Uttarahalli on September 1 after she had slipped into coma. Her kidneys, liver and eyes were also harvested and used by hospitals in Bangalore.
(With additional reporting by Afshan Yasmeen in Bangalore)
