Heart harvested from patient at Delhi hosp sent to AIIMS via 10-km green corridor

A 26-year-old man got a new lease of life on Wednesday after the heart donated by a 32-year-old road accident victim was transplanted in him in a nearly seven-hour-long surgery at AIIMS here.

The heart was ferried earlier during the day through a 10-kilometre ‘green corridor’ set up between Fortis Hospital, Vasant Kunj, and the AIIMS.

“The heart recipient, a Delhi resident, suffered from severe ischemic cardiomyopathy and had a very weak heart. He urgently needed a heart transplant,” Dr Milind Hote, professor in the Department of cardiothoracic and vascular surgery at AIIMS, said.

“The heart recipient is doing well. Will be off the ventilator hopefully Thursday morning,” he stated.

The road accident victim was brought in at Fortis Hospital, Vasant Kunj, on February 25 in an “extremely critical condition”. His CT examination revealed “severe brain damage”, doctors at Fortis said.

Despite the best efforts of doctors, the patient could not be saved. After he was declared brain dead, his family consented to donate his organs, a Fortis Hospital spokesperson said.

The organs were retrieved on Wednesday and sent to three different hospitals. One of his kidneys was used for a patient at the same hospital, she said.

The heart was donated to a patient at AIIMS, the liver to one at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital here and a kidney to a patient at Max Hospital in Delhi’s Shalimar Bagh, Fortis Hospital said in

a statement.

The National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) played an important role in coordinating between various hospitals for allocation of various organs to the most suitable recipients, Dr Hote said adding the Organ Retrieval Banking Organization at AIIMS was instrumental in arranging all logistics needed for a heart transplant and green corridor.

“Excellent green corridor was arranged by Delhi Traffic Police. We reached Fortis Vasantkunj to AIIMS in 16 minutes in peak morning traffic of 9 am,” he said.

Dr Gauri Shankar Sharma, director and head of critical care medicine at Fortis Hospital, said, “The clockwork precision of all internal and external teams, including Delhi Traffic Police, made this donation a reality. This should encourage more people to come forward and get themselves registered for organ donation to save more lives.”

According to data available with NOTTO, 11 cadaver donations were done with the successful retrieval of 30 organs in Delhi in 2022, according to a statement.