Chennai, 25 April 2024 (GNP): Ayesha Rashan, a 19-year-old Pakistani girl, waited for five years with an ill heart. On January 31, medical professionals from MGM Healthcare in Chennai handed her the heart of a patient who was hospitalized in Delhi and was 69 years old and brain dead.
Ayesha experienced a cardiac arrest and heart failure in 2019, the year she initially traveled to India. A heart transplant was suggested by senior cardiac surgeon Dr. K R Balakrishnan, who was working at Malar Hospital in Adyar at the time.
On the state organ register, she was placed in a queue. Her doctors offered her a left ventricular assist device, a surgically implanted mechanical pump that helps the left ventricle pump blood, as a stopgap measure before a transplant.
She returned home by plane, but in 2023 her heart failed on the right side as well.
“It was terrible to see my daughter suffer like that. We reached out to the surgeon. We told him we couldn’t afford surgery, but he asked us to come to India,” said Sanober Rashan, her mother.
The only alternative, according to Dr. Balakrishnan’s team, was a heart transplant in September 2023.
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On January 31, the hospital called Sanober with the long-awaited news, “a heart was available for her daughter. Given that organ transplants for foreigners are only considered when there are no local recipients, it was a rare opportunity.
Dr. K G Suresh Rao, co-director of MGM Healthcare’s Institute of Heart and Lung Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support, explained the decision to proceed with the transplant.
“Many surgeons were hesitant because the donor was 69 years old, but we took the risk knowing that this was Ayesha’s only chance,” he said.
Following the successful surgery, Ayesha was taken off life support a few days later. Her hospital stay continued until April 17, with the costs covered through donations from the non-profit Aishwarya Trust, former patients, and the medical team.
