Monday’s heart transplant was not among the usual ones for Mumbai’s Fortis Hospital. The patient, a 27-year-old woman from Ukraine – is the first foreigner to get a heart transplant done in Mumbai. The woman had come to the city three days back with the hope of registering herself for a heart transplant.
Luckily, within three days of her stay in Mumbai, there was a donor heart and she was taken up for the surgery in the morning.
To add to it, this is the second open heart surgery that she underwent in less than two months.
“This case is about miracle, destiny and expertise. She came to the city just three days ago. No one knew her family’s prayers for a donor heart will be heard so soon. She was critical and needed an urgent heart transplant,” said Dr Sanjeev Jadhav, Cardiothoracic Surgeon and heart-lung-kidney transplant surgeon at Fortis Hospital, Mumbai and Jehangir hospital in Pune.
Doctors said the Ukraine citizen was diagnosed with post-partum cardiomyopathy
“It is a rare, life-threatening heart disease that occurs during pregnancy or immediately after delivery. After her delivery last year, the patient was diagnosed with this rare disease. With very low heart pumping power, she underwent double valve surgery in February 17 this year but she deteriorated,” said Jadhav.
With no heart transplant options in Ukraine, the family decided to get in touch with Fortis Hospital, Mumbai for a heart transplant. “We got a call from Surat at 11 pm last night about a possible donor. Dr Anvay Mulay, heart transplant surgeon went to Surat to retrieve the heart of a 22-year-old man who met with a road accident and was declared brain dead,” said Jadhav.
The heart transplant started at 7 am this morning and went on till 3.30 pm. “It was one of the most difficult and tricky heart transplant done so far since she had an open heart surgery one and half months back. It was difficult to detach the heart. Above that, she was on blood thinner medication. Chances of her bleeding during the surgery were also present. We however managed and she is doing well,” said Jadhav.
What is heart transplant?
A heart transplant or a cardiac transplantation is a surgical procedure performed on patients with end-stage heart failure or severe coronary artery disease. The procedure is only considered when neither medication nor other surgeries can ensure the survival of a patient. The heart is given by the family of person who has been declared brain dead.
All you need to know about the heart transplant program in Mumbai.
It was in 1968 that Dr PK Sen and his team from KEM Hospital, Parel, carried out two transplants with limited success, barely six months after South African surgeon Christian Barnard performed the world’s first heart transplant.
After which, there was a long gap and end-stage heart patients had to go to hospitals in South India for the heart transplant. After a gap of 47-years, Mumbai again started off the heart transplant program when a 22-year-old Badlapur resident underwent a heart transplant surgery on August 3, 2015. Since then, more than 40 heart transplants have taken place in Mumbai hospitals.