Hyderabad: The ability of the traffic police to completely stop the flow of traffic and allow an ambulance to move from Yashoda Hospital, Secunderabad, to Apollo Hospitals, Jubilee Hills, in 10 minutes allowed the first heart transplant operation under the Jeevandan scheme to be a success.
The heart was retrieved from 21-year-old brain dead patient Sai Teja Nimmagadda who had met with an accident at Lakdikapul on November 10. He was declared brain dead on November 11 at Yashoda Hospital.
Jeevandan Scheme mentors got the permission from his family to donate his organs and during assessment it was found that his heart was very strong as he had been an athlete.
Meanwhile, doctors at Apollo Hospitals were struggling with 19-year-old Veer Anjaneyulu, a pharmacy student from Karampuri Mandal, Guntur, who had “end stage heart failure”.
The patient had been with them since two months and despite treatment, his heart muscles were severely depressed due to which his vital organs were also failing. The presence of a young donor heart at this time was an opportunity to save Anjaneyulu.
Dr Vijay Dikshit, chief of cardiothoracic surgery, Apollo Hospitals, said, “When our team inspected the donor heart we were confident that it was in a good condition and would help revive the recipient patient.
But the major hassle was the time that would take to drive from Secunderabad to Jubilee Hills. The lesser the time taken, the better would be the condition of the heart. Hence we expressed our concern to Jeevandan members and the traffic police who cooperated wonderfully. In a record 10 minutes, we were with the harvested heart in the hospital and could begin our process.”
Dr Dikshit said that the credit went to everyone, as it had been a very well coordinated team effort that had given Anjaneyulu a new lease of life.
In the initial days after the heart transplant, he was critical as it took time for the body to adjust but he has now recovered fully and has been discharged.
