A five-hour heart transplant operation carried out by a motivated team of doctors provided a new lease of life to a 13-year-old girl who had been on ventilator due to severe cardiomyopathy.

The paediatric Orthotopic Heart Transplantation operation in Kerala was carried out by Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

Heart transplant operations are costly and paediatric heart transplants are rare because of the limited availability of paediatric hearts. This makes such treatment for heart diseases inaccessible to many who cannot afford it even under life threatening conditions.

With this operation, Sree Chitra joined the group of government hospitals making such treatment facility more accessible.

ICMR had helped to establish the comprehensive heart failure program at SCTIMST, and the institute received the licence for heart transplant last year. It was the plight of the 13-year-old from Chavakkad, Thrissur, confined to the ICU for the last two months that triggered the SCTIMST hospital to look for a donor.

They received the donor heart from a 47-year-old schoolteacher who suffered from sustained brain haemorrhage due to ruptured intracranial aneurysm and had been declared brain dead at the KIMS HEALTH hospital. Kerala State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (K-SOTTO) allocated the organ to SCTIMST in accordance with the organ allocation policy of the Government of Kerala.

The team consisting of Dr Baiju S Dharan, Dr Vivek V Pillai, Dr Soumya Remanan, Dr. Renjith S, Dr Veena Vasudev from the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, Dr Harikrishnan S, Dr Krishnamoorthy K M, Dr Deepa S Kumar, Dr Arun Gopalakrishnan, Dr Jyothi Vijay from Department of Cardiology and Dr Shrinivas V G from the Department of Cardiac Anaesthesia, along with their respective teams, performed the lengthy operation.

They were supported by transplant coordinator Ms. Beena Pillai, senior residents of cardiac surgery and cardiac anaesthesia, staff members of Division of Perfusion Technology, Department of Transfusion Medicine and blood bank staff, nursing and technical staff, transport wing, security and biomedical technology wing along with other medical and paramedical staff members of the institute. Kerala Police arranged the green corridor for the quick transport of the organ.