The youngest heart transplant has become a possibility through the quick networking of doctors across various cities in the country. A 16-year-old girl who was waiting for a donor heart for more than a month had successfully undergone a heart transplant in Mumbai.The donor heart was harvested from a 20-year-old brain-dead girl with epilepsy. She fell from a chair and was declared brain dead at the MGM Medical College and Hospital in Indore on Jan 2. Her parents immediately accepted to donate her organs, but the hospital was not equipped with qualified doctors for organ retrieval.
‘A teenage girl became the youngest in Mumbai to get a heart through a successful interstate organ donation that covered 546km from Indore to a Mulund hospital in under two hours.’
The hospital immediately alerted the Indore Organ Donation Society and they sent emails to various hospitals reporting an availability of heart. Dr Sanjay Dixit, secretary of Indore Organ Donation Society also contacted Dr Anil Bandi, kidney transplant surgeon at Greater Kailash Hospital in Indore, about the possibility of organ donation.Dr Bandi, in turn spoke to Dr Sunil Shroff, trustee of MOHAN Foundation in Chennai, and told him about the availability of organs.
“I called up the ZTCC general secretary Dr Sujata Patwardhan in Mumbai and told her there was a possibility of a heart, “ said Dr. Shroff.
The ZTCC in Mumbai immediately alerted Fortis Hospital, where surgeons flew back to Indore and harvested the heart on early Sunday morning. A commercial flight carrying the donor heart landed at the Mumbai International airport and a green corridor was created for speedy transportation of the heart to Fortis Hospital in Mulund. The donor heart was transported to the hospital at Mumbai in 1 hour 58 minutes covering 546 km.
A team of cardiac surgeons immediately harvested the heart on the 16-year-old girl. They said that the patient is stable and will be kept under observation for the next 48-72 hours.
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Source-Medindia