That the organ transplant network now works super-efficiently in the country was clear on Tuesday. A 6 am phone call to Delhi from an official of Maharashtra health department triggered a quick assigning of a heart harvested in Surat, which was flown to Mumbai on a chartered flight, and transplanted into a 43-year-old man. The transplant operation started at 11.48am, less than six hours after that phone call.
While for Fortis Hospital, Mulund, this was the 14th heart transplant procedure, it was the sixth inter-State heart transplant for State health officials, and the speed at which it all worked out was the high point.
Dr Gauri Rathod, nodal officer of Maharashtra’s human organ transplant programme, said: “I called the NOTTO (National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organsation) helpline at 6 am, and was wondering if it would get answered. But a person picked up the phone on the first ring.”
She said that along with the phone call, she had even posted the information on the harvested heart on the messaging platform Whatsapp, which too had five responses. And all this at the crack of dawn.
The coordinated transplant effort, now largely perfected in Mumbai, rolled into action after a 17-year-old at Sunshine Global Hospital in Surat was declared brain dead following a road accident in which he suffered a serious head injury. The heart was flown to Fortis Hospital Mulund, with the airport and traffic authorities of both cities creating a ‘green corridor’ for quick transportation of the heart.
The heart’s recipient hails from Alwar in Rajasthan, and was suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy.
Officials of the Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee said there were 15 people waitlisted for a heart, and while Fortis has been at the forefront, carrying out all the heart transplants recorded in the city since last year, more hospitals are joining in.
Expanding network
The city’s heart transplant network is expanding. The first heart transplant in Mumbai was carried out in August last year.
Over the past six months, the number of hospitals registered with the State health department to carry out the procedure has gone up from two to six. Earlier, only Fortis and Asian Heart Institute were carrying out heart transplants; now the list includes hospitals such as Jaslok, Jupiter, and Kokilaben. “We want more hospitals to start taking up heart transplants,” Dr Rathod said.
To strengthen the organ transplant network, the government is in talks with private flight operators, who have been seeking waiver of the airport parking charges and certain tax concessions. Flying a heart from one city to another costs a minimum of Rs 3 to 4 lakh.
