A live heart was transported from IGI Airport here to Medanta Hospital in Gurgaon in 16 minutes and a liver was rushed to the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences in 15 minutes with the help of green corridors put in place by Delhi and Gurgaon police.
While the heart was transplanted in a 35-year-old woman suffering from end-stage heart disease at Medanta, the liver went to ILBS and was transplanted in a 55-year-old man suffering from liver failure.
The organs belonged to an 18-year-old Deepak Dhaketa who was declared brain dead by doctors following a road accident at Sri Aurobindo Institute of Medical Sciences (SAIMS) in Indore on April 27.
His kidneys were transplanted into two patients at SAIMS and Choithram Hospital and Research Centre in Indore.
Two green corridors were created from the IGI Airport-- one for Gurgaon and another for Vasant Kunj.
"The heart arrived at the IGI airport around 1.15 PM and was immediately rushed to Medanta Hospital. Green corridor was created on the National Highway to ensure that it reached the destination covering 18 kilometers within 16 minutes.
"The liver arrived at 1.58 PM and was transported to ILBS. The ambulance covered 11.4 kilometers in 15 minutes," Sharad Aggarwal, joint commissioner, Traffic said.
Delhi and Gurgaon traffic police coordinated to create the green corridor on the National Highway and all entry and exit points on NH8 were closed to facilitate smooth movement.
"The crucial aspect in cases of heart transplant is that the time span between the harvesting of the organ to its implantation should not exceed four hours.
"The details of this 35-year-old woman was already there at the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) where cases of people waiting for a donor are registered. The blood group of the recipient matched with that of the donor and the heart was allotted to her," Cardiovascular Surgeon and Managing Director of Medanta Medicity Dr Naresh Trehan said.
Dr Anil Bhan, Cardiac Surgeon and his team from Medanta had brought the heart from Indore in a private aircraft.
"Green corridor were created with the help of police and the heart was successfully transplanted in the patient. So here the challenge was how to get it from Indore, transplant it and make it work in four hours. Even an half-an-hour delay could have caused problem. In such cases every minute counts," Dr Trehan said, adding the patient was recovering well.
Even the patient at ILBS was in a critical condition and the timely transplant helped save his life, said a senior doctor.
