After a long and arduous wait, Nepali national Durga Kami finally received a new lease of life after undergoing a heart transplant on Monday (December 22) at the General Hospital, Ernakulam.
With the landmark procedure, the General Hospital became the first district hospital in India to perform a heart transplant, according to hospital authorities.
The transplant surgery became possible following judicial intervention. Although Ms. Kami, a 22-year-old orphan, was on the super-urgent heart transplant list as her condition could lead to fatal complications, the law initially posed a hurdle, doctors said. The law stipulates that Indian nationals requiring heart transplants should be given priority when donor hearts are allocated.
The heart, retrieved from 46-year-old S. Shibu, a Kollam native who was declared brain-dead at the Government Medical College Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram, was transplanted to Ms. Kami, also known as Arpana, who had been seeking medical treatment in India for close to a year for a heart ailment.
An eight-member team of doctors from the General Hospital, including Dr. George Valuran, Dr. Paul Thomas, and Dr. Geo Paul, left for Thiruvananthapuram on Monday morning to retrieve the heart. The surgery, which began at 11 a.m., continued beyond 1 p.m. as several organs had to be harvested. “The heart was airlifted to Kochi and received at the theatre at the General Hospital around 3.15 p.m.,” a hospital source said.
