A 25-year-old mother with a failing heart condition, got a new lease of life through a difficult heart transplant done by doctors at the Yashoda Hospitals.
Venkata Ramya from Pitapuram in East Godavari district had developed a medical condition called ‘Postpartum Cardiomyopathy’ (immediately after delivery) seven years ago. Even since, her health was deteriorating and she had to be hospitalised a few times.
Cardiothoracic and transplant surgeon, A.G.K. Gokhale, cardiologist Rajasekhar and G. Subramanyam, consultant anaesthetist, who evaluated her advised transplant as the best option.
After a month of waiting, she was a lucky beneficiary from a 21-year-old accident victim, whose kin donated his organs.
The Yashoda Hospital team led by Gokhale harvested the heart, brought it to the hospital in 10 minutes with police escort and did the emergency transplant on December 15.
Gokhale said, “Organ transplantations like heart and lung are the new hope for those suffering from end-stage organ failure.
"Transplantations not only save lives but also help patients live longer. Our past experience of performing seven heart transplants helped us reduce the ischemic time to 2 hours which made the recovery of patient very fast like any other routine open heart surgery”.
somasekhar.m@thehindu.co.in