Chennai: Belonging to a family of seven children, of who five suffer from heart failure, 18-year-old Akash (name changed) was flown down from Abu Dhabi with symptoms of advanced heart failure and shock liver (function affected due to circulation issues).
Having lost his brother to the same disease last year, the need for a heart transplant was the need of the hour for the family.
Encouraged by Cleveland Clinic, the family brought the boy and his younger brother (also in need of a transplant) to Chennai where the chances of being registered on Transtan (the organ donation registry) for a heart was higher.
“The boy was admitted for two weeks in Abu Dhabi before being flown down. He was on IV medications to maintain his failing heart, without which, he was pretty unwell,” said Dr Sandeep Attawar, Institute of Heart, Lung and Transplantation, Gleneagles Global Health City, where the boy is admitted.
He has been in and out of the intensive care unit (ICU) of the hospital for a month. “We registered him in Transtan and within three weeks of his stay here - day before yesterday night - there was an organ available in Hyderabad and there were no takers in AP or Telangana. We flew down on a chartered aircraft and brought it down for the boy,” said the doctor, adding that he is recovering in the ICU and off the ventilator.
