CHENNAI: In what seems like a case of the entire universe conspiring to make a 21 year old live on with a transplanted heart, all of Chennai came together in an orchestrated harmony to cooperate with military precision and enable the passage of a freshly harvested heart from a brain-dead road accident victim at Government General Hospital to another in desperate need of a new heart waiting at Fortis Malar Hospitals in Adyar, about 12km away, in less than 14 minutes by creating a “green corridor” – that is, red-light free access.
Dr Suresh Rao, chief anaesthetist at Fortis Malar said, As soon as the heart was brought, the transplant began. By 10.15pm, the heart was beating in the patient’s chest.
The lucky person to receive the heart is a 21-year-old BCom student from Mumbai- Hvovi Minocherchomji. The tears in her mothers eyes and the prayers on her fathers lips were answered when, it turned out that with five others awaiting a heart transplant, the donor’s blood group and body weight matched only with hers.
This heart-warming story comes at a time when one routinely reads about people losing their lives because of their inability to reach the hospital on time because of VIP traffic restrictions. On Monday, 16 June, traffic in Chennai literally came to a halt to save the life of an ordinary patient.
TOI reports that in a textbook example of precise coordination between surgeons of two hospitals and the city traffic police, a medical team miraculously transported a heart to the needy patient covering 12km, in under 14 minutes. For those unfamiliar with Chennai, it’s important to know that the road connecting the two hospitals is a key arterial road, usually carrying heavy traffic. That the police, doctors and the ordinary people cooperated to block it off for saving a life is obviously a great gesture by a city with a big heart.
The ambulance carrying the heart, harvested from a 27-year-old man who died in a traffic accident and preserved in a special container at 4 degrees Celsius, started from Government hospital at 6.44pm and reached Fortis Malar 13 minutes and 22 seconds later, at 6.57pm. Normally, a vehicle takes 45 minutes to cover the stretch at peak hour.
Malar surgeons immediately got to the job of transplanting the organ on the recipient who was kept ready. Through the day, the teams of doctors at the two hospitals had been keeping each other informed about the condition of the donor and the recipient. The liver and kidneys went to other hospitals.
Malar got a call as early as 5.45am on Monday that a brain-dead patient may be taken off the ventilator in a few hours and that a heart, a liver and kidneys would be available for donation. The Mumbai woman turned out to be luckier than five others awaiting a heart transplant, as the donor’s blood group and body weight matched only with hers among the other patients.
Almost simultaneously, Karunasagar, the additional commissioner of police (traffic) was informed about the need to transport the organ. By afternoon, the traffic police were ready to create the green corridor, most of it along the Beach Road and Santhome High Road, two of the busiest stretches in the evening.
After formalities, GH surgeons informed their counterparts in Malar that they would start harvesting the donor’s heart by 5.30pm, after the liver and kidneys were taken out. Around the same time, the Malar team started preparing the recipient. The special container with the heart surrounded by a perfusion fluid and ice in separate sachets was put in the ambulance at 6.40pm.
A human heart can be preserved for up to four hours, but experts say the earlier the transplant, the higher the chances of success.
Now it was for the traffic police to ensure a safe and speedy passage for the organ. C Kathir, a seasoned ambulance driver, was chosen for the mission. Deputy commissioner Sivanandan had charted the route the ambulance would take. By 3pm, he had in place 26 of his men at the 12 intersections the ambulance was to pass. As the vehicle passed each signal – touching 100kmph at times – a pilot radioed in the location to the control room as also the police teams along the corridor.
“It was a smooth operation but for a minor bottleneck at Muthusamy Road where the ambulance had to take a wrong way to evade a blocking MTC bus,” said M Selvaraj, the pilot.
Dr Suresh Rao, chief anaesthetist at Malar Hospitals said the transplant would take at least four hours. “As of now everything has worked fine,” he said. Karunasagar said the city traffic police have proved repeatedly their mettle in creating green corridors without affecting normal life on the roads.
The New Indian Express reports that the Chennai City Traffic Polices Green Channel for organ transplants started in 2008 when the Tamil Nadu Organ Transplant Programme was initiated. The green corridor has held good over the years to such an extent that 75 hearts have been transplanted successfully, in the citys major hospitals. This is the only city that has this sort of a system in India and we must think of scaling it up and adopting it in other places as well, says Dr K R Balakrishnan, who transplanted the heart from a 27-year-old diploma holder from Kancheepuram, Loganathan, to a 21-year-old Hvovi Minocherchomji, from Mumbai.
One of the first times that the green channel was used was in 2008, when a heart was transported from Apollo Multi-speciality Hospitals in Teynampet to Frontier Lifeline Hospital in Mogappair in 14 minutes flat. It is a great thing that we are not wasting an organ because of traffic, Dr K M Cherian had told Express then. From then till now, all it takes is a quick call to the local Assistant Commissioner of Police to set things up.
The green channel owes its success to the transparency of the system, All the 15 signals on Beach Road (Kamarajar Salai) are turned green and traffic is cleared on one lane. There is a pilot car in front of us that clears the traffic and we just have to follow him all the way to the hospital, says Kathir, who has now transported hearts for five transplants, all of them successful.
What about excessive speeding? Kathir laughs before responding, Today I drove at 100 kmph but sometimes it is more. There have been a few times when we have come close to hitting vehicles on the road, but we were fortunate, he says.
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