Chennai 19th August 2017: A young boy was declared brain-dead in the CMC hospital, Vellore and the patient’s family came forward to donate his organs so that others can benefit. Gleneagles Global Health City’s organ transplant coordinator’s team received an alert about this and the team started with the paper-work and logistics arrangements immediately.
According to Internationally accepted recommendations, the medical team had given a 4 hour window, from the moment the organ is explanted from the donor and implanted to the recipient. The goal here is to achieve the shortest possible ischemic period, so that outcome of the transplant surgery is better. However Vellore is located 140 kms from Chennai and transporting the harvested heart by road would be a gamble. The transplant team immediately thought of an alternative plan to bring the heart using helicopter, which will save considerable amount of time.
Transporting an organ using an helicopter, however simple the plan sounds, requires meticulous planning and innumerable clearances from several Government and private bodies, which include District Collectorates, Police departments, Fire and Rescue departments, Revenue Departments, PWD department and the Aviation department which has to provide pin-point details including the take-off and landing co-ordinates. This mammoth task has been accomplished by the careful ground work and perseverance of the transplant co-ordination team of Gleneagles Global Health City.
The harvested organ was taken aboard a helicopter which was waiting in the Vellore Institute of Technology campus. The chopper arrived at the Sanmar campus in Thoraipakkam, Chennai, and the harvested heart reached Gleneagles Global Health City by road in an ambulance. Dr Sandeep Attawar, Program Director and Chair Cardiac Surgeries, Thoracic Organ Transplant, Gleneagles Global Hospitals and his team of surgeons successfully transplanted the heart to a patient who was suffering from and end-stage heart disease.
