Sahyadri Hospital performs Pune’s first heart transplant this year

270 km in two-and-a-half hours

The heart of a 25-year-old man, who was declared brain dead on April 24, was transplanted in a 59-year-old veterinary doctor who was suffering from end-stage heart failure.

Pune:

he first heart transplant in Pune this year was performed Monday at Sahyadri Hospital Deccan after a medical team took just 150 minutes (two-and-a-half hours) to bring the organ from Kolhapur covering a distance of 270 km, which normally takes around four hours, said officials. The heart of a 25-year-old man, who was declared brain dead on April 24, was transplanted in a 59-year-old veterinary doctor who was suffering from end-stage heart failure.

The man from Devale, who worked with the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited, met with an accident and was admitted to Aster Aadhar Hospital in Kolhapur.

Aarti Gokhale, central coordinator, zonal transplant coordination committee, Pune, said that after the parents gave consent to donate the organs of their son, traffic police of Kolhapur, Karad, Satara, Pune rural and the city police made arrangements to ensure that the heart reached the hospital as early as possible.

Dr Manoj Durairaj, programme director for heart transplantation, Sahyadri Hospitals, said that their medical team had left shortly after midnight and reached Kolhapur in early Monday morning. “We assessed the donor and then the heart was taken out by 10 am. By 12.30 pm, we reached Pune and harvested the heart. The patient is doing fine and is stable,” Dr Durairaj said. The receiver’s heart was functioning only 20 per cent and he was suffering severe shortness of breath, said the doctors.