Heart from Delhi saves patient in city

Several departments came together on Wednesday to make the trip from New Delhi to Chennai, covering 2,184 kilometres possible. Till now, the longest distance an organ was transported was from Aurangabad and Chennai in February 2016. 

The donor, a civilian in the Air Force suffered injuries in a road accident in the capital on Tuesday. Undergoing treatment at the R & R Army Hospital in New Delhi, he was declared brain dead on Wednesday morning. In the hour of grief, his family members volunteered to donate his organs. 

The Gleneagles Global Health City, Chennai received a call from TRANSTAN, the organ transplant authority of the state, about the availability of a heart and there was a recipient at the hospital awaiting a transplant. 

The organ was harvested and rushed to the Indira Gandhi International Airport. The Delhi Traffic Police created a green corridor for the heart to reach the airport for the 4.12 pm flight. After a little over than two and half hours, the heart reached the facility in Chennai at 7.26 pm, with the help of a 36-minute green corridor organised by the City Traffic Police. 

Dr Sandeep Attawar, Director and Chair of Heart Failure and Transplant Program, Gleneagles Global Hospitals Group and his team of doctors successfully implanted the donated heart in the patient who was suffering from end-stage heart failure. 

Dr Attawar said, “There was a very short, six hour window of opportunity to get the heart safely from Delhi to Chennai. The doctors at the army hospital were kind enough to harvest the organ and ensure all necessary parameters to transport it safely.”