Chennai: Chennai came to a halt to save a precious life on Monday. Â The amazing coordination between surgeons of two hospitals and the city traffic police saved the life of a student.
A medical team transported a heart from Government General Hospital to Fortis Malar Hospitals in Adyar. The heart was transported from Government General Hospital to Fortis in less than 14 mins during peak hours by creating a “green corridor” – that is, red-light free access.
“As soon as the heart was brought, the transplant began. By 10:15 pm, the heart was beating in the patient’s chest,” said Dr Suresh Rao, chief anesthetist at Fortis Malar.
Government Hospital informed Fortis at 5:45 am about availability of heart. Fortis got a call at 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.
Additional commissioner of police (traffic) was informed about the urgency to transport the organ. Â By afternoon, the traffic police were ready to create the green corridor.
After formalities, Government Hospital surgeons informed their counterparts in Fortis that they would start harvesting the donor’s heart by 5:30pm. Â Around the same time, the Fortis 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.
Now it was police’s duty to transport heart safely on time. 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 anesthetist at Fortis 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.