2 heart transplants in Kolkata within 24 hours

Two heart transplants were carried out in less than 24 hours in Kolkata, with a 600-km green corridor being set up from Patna to the city for the second one.

Following a heart transplant on a 51-year-old man in a city hospital on Monday, another transplant was carried out on a young woman in another health facility.

The 29-year-old woman from Howrah was suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy and was undergoing treatment at the hospital for the past one year, said a senior doctor involved in the operation.

The heart for the second transplant was harvested from a 19-year-old youth, who was declared brain dead at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS), Patna, on Monday, after suffering an accident the previous day, the doctor said.

His family gave the consent to donate their son's organs like heart, liver and kidneys. "A team of doctors from the city's hospital rushed to harvest the donor's heart and reached Patna at 10.15 am on Monday. A 608-km long green corridor was constituted from IGIMS to the hospital here," the doctor said.

The ambulance carrying the harvested heart left the Patna hospital at 3.30 pm and reached the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose airport at 5.07 pm. Thereafter, the doctors carrying the harvested heart took the green corridor created by the Kolkata Police and reached the hospital -- 22 km away -- within 25 minutes, said a senior officer of the Kolkata Traffic Police.

The transplant surgery was completed successfully and the patient was shifted to the isolation ITU (intensive therapy unit) on Monday night, the doctor said.

The woman was extubated this morning within 12 hours of the completion of the surgery, he said. "She is stable and conscious. The team of intensivists, cardiologists and cardiac surgeons are closely monitoring her parameters.