Doctors in the Department of Cardio Vascular and Thoracic Surgery and Cardiac Anesthesiology of KLES Dr Prabhakar Kore Hospital successfully performed the 11th and 12th heart transplants recently. The organ recipients aged 18 and 25 from Jamkhandi and Hukkeri are recovering.
KLE Society chairman Prabhakar Kore told journalists in Belagavi on Tuesday that the hospital is emerging as the only “multi-organ transplant centre” of North Karnataka which is performing heart, liver, kidney transplants regularly.
“So far, we have successfully performed 80 corneal transplants, 76 kidney transplants, 12 heart transplants and nine liver transplants. The KLE Rotary Skin Bank has supplied skins to far off places like Ahmedabad, Delhi, Bengaluru,” Mr. Kore said.
A rising trend in organ donation has helped, he added.
Thanking organ donor families and congratulating the recipient family members for taking the bold decision to undergo heart transplants for their children, he said that the heart transplants were done free for needy patients from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families under the Arogya Karnataka-Ayusman Bharat Scheme. In the case of others, KLE charged competitive rates, he said.
A heart transplant procedure costs between ₹25 lakh and ₹30 lakh in metro cities. “But we do it for ₹10 lakh only,” he said.
He thanked teams of intensivists, transplant coordinators and State Organ Tissue and Transplant Organisation (SOTTO) officers. “Their networking, coordination and herculean efforts led to donor organ retrieval. We thank the police and KLE ambulance service for bringing a heart from SDM Hospital in Dharwad to Belagavi in a record time of 55 mins,” he said.
Meanwhile, relatives of the patients spoke to journalists.
“The young boy (recipient) from Jamkhandi was studying in Moodbidri town and had difficulty in climbing stairs, weakness, swelling in the body and episodes of omitting and chest pain. He was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy with ejection of fraction of heart around 14%. Post the transplant, he made study progress and will be discharged in a day. He was not treated despite several visits to many doctors, including a corporate hospital in Bengaluru,” the boy’s parents said.
“The young science graduate (recipient) was suffering from loss of appetite, omitting, nausea and breathlessness while climbing. She was diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy. Post the heart transplant, she has made remarkable progress,” said her mother. She wants to continue her studies and complete M.Sc.
One of the hearts was retrieved from a patient in SDM College of Medical Sciences, Dharwad, while the other was from KLES Dr Prabhakar Kore Hospital itself.
Richard Saldanha, head of the Department of Heart Surgery, said that the hospital will soon begin lung transplants. “Heart transplant is a complex and challenging task. It is a tremendous team effort involving surgeons, anaesthesiologists, perfussionists, nurses and technicians. I appreciate the effort of the team members for all these excellent outcomes,” he said.
