A 45-year-old male farmer’s family from Aregudem in Nalgonda District donated his organs, as he died of an acute hemorrhagic bleed on 2 February. His heart, harvested at the Kamineni Hospital in Hyderabad was transported on the Hyderabad Metro Rail to Apollo Hospitals in the city.
The two hospitals, which are in Nagole and Jubilee Hills, are 30 km away.
The Metro Rail authorities created a green corridor for the transport of the organ and assigned a special train, which ran for 40 minutes. A team of doctors and other healthcare professionals accompanied the heart on the train.
“We will perform heart transplant on a 44-year-old male patient in Apollo Hospitals. The patient’s heart does not beat properly and it had created pressure on his lunges. His kidney function too had reduced. He was in the last stage.”Dr Alla Gopala Krishna Gokhale, Consultant Cardiothoracic, Transplant and Minimal Access Surgeon at Apollo Hospitals said.
Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited was alerted about the transplant, because it would have taken longer to cover the distance between the donor at Kamineni Hospital and the recipient at Apollo Hospitals.
“The logistic problem here is that Kamineni Hospital and Apollo Hospitals are at two ends of Hyderabad. To transport the heart it would have taken one hour by road. Even with a green channel by road it would have taken a long time. So we approached L&T (Metro Rail Hyderabad Limited). Short of a helicopter, we thought that this is the best option. And L&T has kindly consented to give a special train for this purpose.”Dr Alla Gopala Krishna Gokhale, Consultant Cardiothoracic, Transplant and Minimal Access Surgeon at Apollo Hospitals.
The distance covered by the Metro was 21km.
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