Britain’s Heart Transplant units Face Closure

Britain’s six heart transplant units face the reality of closure as the number of transplants has decreased by 46 per cent in the last ten years, report some doctors.

Their report appears in the British Medical Journal, where they say, “It is difficult for surgeons in the six UK units to maintain their expertise, so the number of units may need to be reduced."

Congestive Heart Failure (Congestive Cardiac Failure) Current Management
Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a condition in which the heart fails to work adequately as a pump that can deliver oxygen rich blood to the body.

The six units where transplants are carried out are Harefield Hospital in London, Papworth near Cambridge, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester, the Freeman Hospital and the Royal Infirmary in Glasgow.

Heart transplants for children are done in Harefield and Newcastle as well as in Great Ormond Street.

Guy MacGowan, a consultant cardiologist at the Freeman Hospital, the lead author of the report, has written about a couple of units closing down, although he has not specified which. The difficulty in getting donor hearts has brought down the number of surgeries done each year.

About Transplantation
Since the early times, the novel idea of transplanting tissues and other body parts from one organism to the other has captured the imagination of successive generations.

The Department for Health has planned to review cardiothoracic transplantation.

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An Active Heart
The heart pumps blood constantly providing the power to sustain life.

Source-Medindia

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