CorporateWatch

Fortis Starts Heart Transplant

In a milestone surgery, recently doctors at Chennai's Fortis Malar successfully performed a heart transplant. This is a first for Fortis Healthcare. A team of doctors headed by Dr KR Balakrishnan, Director- Cardiac Sciences Fortis Malar Hospital performed the complex surgery, which lasted close to eight hours.

The 35-year old recipient was suffering from end-stage heart failure and a heart transplant was his only chance for survival. The cadaver heart came from a 34-year old donor whose relatives donated all his organs, after he was taken to a private hospital in Chennai following a road accident and declared brain dead. The decision was made and surgery performed after careful examination of the donor heart and the conditions for transplant, by the Cardiac team at Fortis Malar.

Dr KR Balakrishnan, Director- Cardiac Sciences Fortis Malar Hospital, said, "We decided to perform the high-risk surgery after we received confirmation of the availability of a donor heart of the same blood group. The surgery started immediately after we received the donor heart, and lasted almost eight hours. The patient is recovering well, and the credit must go to the entire cardiac team, those that helped transport the donor heart and those providing post-op nursing care."

Bhavdeep Singh, CEO Fortis Healthcare Limited, added, "This is a historic surgery for us since it is the first time a heart transplant has been performed at any Fortis Hospital. With this, we have crossed another milestone in our ongoing quest for medical excellence and our commitment to changing people's lives through world-class healthcare delivery."

This life-saving heart transplant surgery was made possible by the support of the Tamil Nadu Organ Sharing (TNOS) network programme, facilitated by the State Government. Coincidentally, neither the recipient nor the donor originates from Tamil Nadu. The patient has now been shifted to the isolation critical care department for post operative care where he is responding to treatment and recovering well.

EH News Bureau