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A Pakistani teenage girl who has been ailing since 2019 got a new lease of life after she received a heart from a 69-year-old Indian donor from New Delhi.
The 19-year-old girl from Karachi successfully underwent a heart transplant surgery and was discharged recently, doctors who performed the surgery at a Chennai hospital said.
"I am feeling fine (now). I thank the Indian government for giving me a visa. I got a heart transplant here," she said and also thanked the doctors for saving her.
She was very sick upon her arrival in Chennai, her mother Sanobar said. "We got an emergency visa... the doctors saved her," she added.
Getting the visa was very difficult; more than that the patient's family could not afford the treatment cost, Dr K R Balakrishnan, director of the Institute of Heart and Lung Transplant, MGM Healthcare, Chennai, said.
"Her single mother had no money, no resources at all. With great difficulty, they arranged some finance and came here. We had to take care of the patient's entire expenses including her hospitalisation," he said.
The girl has been battling for her life after suffering a cardiac arrest in 2019. Her family consulted Dr K R Balakrishnan and Dr Suresh Rao, Co-Director, Institute of Heart and Lung Transplant, MGM Healthcare.
The medical team advised a heart transplant as her heart pump had developed a leak. She was put on Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO).
A left ventricular assist heart device was implanted to aid in blood pumping in order to sustain her.
In January this year, the teen girl received a heart from a brain-dead man in New Delhi and the transplant was performed for free, the hospital said.