KOLKATA: In a first in eastern India, a ‘brain dead’ patient’s heart was flown in from Bengaluru to Kolkata by doctors from Chennai and transplanted in a patient from Jharkhand for which green corridors were created in Bengaluru and Kolkata on Monday.
Bengaluru resident Varun D K was grievously injured in an accident on Sunday and was declared brain dead by the doctors at a private hospital there. Simultaneously, Jharkhand resident Dilchand Singh was admitted to a private hospital in Kolkata with heart condition diabetic cardio myopathy in which uncontrolled sugar level swells the heart muscles resulting in lack of oxygen and blood circulation to the heart.
Accordingly, the kin of the seeker and the donor were connected and the governments of West Bengal and Karnataka came into an understanding. A group of six doctors led by Dr Tapas Roychowdhury flew from Chennai to Bengaluru and operated the heart out of Varun.
Next, a green corridor was created in Bengaluru and the heart was taken to Bengaluru airport from which it was flown to Kolkata airport and taken to the private hospital in another green corridor.
A green corridor is a situation where all traffic signals are made green to allow an important consignment to pass without any hurdle. Kolkata police led the convoy in the 15-kilometers-long green corridor and the heart was reached to the patient within 18 minutes.
The heart was successfully transplanted to the seeker over the next few hours. Though successfully done in Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi, such transplantation was first for Kolkata and eastern India and is considered risky with low success rate.
Speaking to the media after the surgery, Dr Roychowdhury said: “Though first in the city, some 35,000 heart transplants are required in West Bengal, of which we have done only one today. But donors are hard to find. So, were quest people to donate their organs upon death. Some nine organs can be donated through which one can live among nine different people even after death.”