Rela Hospital Gives an Arousing Send-off to Its 1st Heart Transplant Patient

Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India:  A historic feat for Rela Hospital. A large team of heart transplant experts and the cardiac specialist team from Rela KIMS Heart and Lung Transplant Institute (including surgeons, anaesthetists, perfusionists and nurses), gave an arousing send-off to their 1^st heart transplant patient. The recipient, Mrs. Sujatha, a 36-year-old housewife got a new lease of life with the heart donated by a brain-dead youth, flown from Madurai to Chennai in a record time of 45-minutes.

Early in Nov 2020, after an assessment at Rela Hospital, Mrs. Sujatha’s family was told that the best chance of getting well again was to undergo a heart transplant surgery. On 26^th Feb 2021, around 6 pm Rela Hospital received an organ alert call from TRANSTAN (Transplant Authority of Tamil Nadu), where this lucky patient got a donor whose organ matched her condition and she underwent a successful heart transplant on Feb 27th, and since then, she has made a remarkable recovery and regained her life where now she is able to do her daily routine like getting dressed, walking, bending, and eating on her own, without any dependency.

“Being breathless was hard and I couldn’t walk for long; climbing stairs was a killer, walking four steps and I’d have to rest. Sometimes I could hardly talk and was so breathless. My family had a tough time managing me. I felt like a burden to them, I never went out of the house then, I was slowly giving up. The hero of my story is my donor, without whom there wouldn’t be this happy story. I do not know who he/she is, I may never know but I am extremely grateful to my donor’s family for this miraculous life which they have given me. None of this would be possible without the generosity of the donor’s family,” said Mrs. Sujatha.

Dr. Sandeep Attawar, Program Director – Heart and Lung Transplantation, Rela KIMS Heart and Lung Transplant Institute, said, “the patient was critically ill and was at the end-stage of heart failure. Heart transplant was her only option. The surgery was successful and she made a remarkable recovery. She started walking on the 2nd day after the surgery. From the 4th day, she started walking on her own and having a normal diet.”

Rela Hospital also thanked the civil authorities, the police officers and their teams in Madurai and Chennai for creating the green corridor that helped the donated organ reach Rela Hospital in a record time.

Speaking at the meet, Prof. Mohamed Rela, Chairman – Rela Hospital said, “This is a tremendous accomplishment. Earlier, Patients used to die each day while waiting for a matching organ. The challenge is finding the right organ for the right person at the right time. Ideally, we need to transplant them before they get too sick and inoperable.”

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