The heart of an 18-year old Tamil Nadu person was transported over 350 kilometres for a successful transplant on a young woman from Srinagar suffering from terminal heart failure at MGM Healthcare in Chennai.
Aishwarya Trust, a Chennai-based non-profit healthcare organisation that supports the medical expenses of deserving patients, came forward to fund the heart transplant.
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A heart from an 18-year-old brain dead donor was transported over 350 kilometres to Chennai and provided a fresh lease of life to a 33-year-old Kashmiri woman suffering terminal heart failure. The Kashmiri woman travelled over 3,000 kilometres from Srinagar for her treatment in Chennai.
Shahzadi Fathima had worsening heart failure symptoms due to Restrictive Cardiomyopathy or RCM, a condition where the chambers of the heart become stiff over time.
She became terminally Ill and her only hope of survival was an early life-saving heart transplant.
On December 31, 2021, she was admitted with sign of severe heart failure. Doctors at MGM Healthcare in Chennai soon treated her with isotropes and other medications.
On January 26, 2022, a “brain-dead” donor was identified in a private hospital in Tamil Nadu’s Trichy.
The heart was soon rushed to Chennai through a green corridor and a high-risk heart transplant was carried out on Shahzadi Fathima. She made a recovery after the procedure and is ready to begin a new life in Kashmir.
Ms Fatima, an unmarried woman from Kashmir lives with her brother, a daily wage earner who was not able to meet her medical expenses and the cost of the transplant. Seeing the plight of this woman, Chennai’s Aishwarya Trust decided to support the entire cost of the transplant.
Dr KR Balakrishnan, Director – Institute of Heart and Lung Transplant & Mechanical Circulatory Support of MGM Healthcare who led the surgery lauded the efforts of the donor’s family in generously agreeing for organ donation in the face of great personal tragedy and Transtan which oversees the organ donation activity in the state.
“Such lifesaving transplants need coordination and support from several people and is a true team effort,” said Dr Suresh Rao, Co-Director. Institute of Heart and Lung Transplant & Mechanical Circulatory Support.