Thiruvananthapuram: With the advancement of technology and a will to save lives at any cost, organ transplants are becoming more common these days. While cities are opening up green corridors to facilitate such transplants, Kerala just moved one step ahead in the list.
In a first in Kerala, a Naval aircraft was converted into an air ambulance to transport a heart harvested from a brain dead patient for a recipient in Kochi.
It airlifted the heart as per Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s instructions. A team of doctors who arrived from Kochi, harvested the organ from Neelakantan Sharma, declared brain dead on Friday at the Sree Chitra Institute of Medical Sciences and Technology in the city.
The harvest surgery was completed at around 6.30 pm, following which, no time was wasted to transfer the heart immediately to the airport, from where Navy’s Dornier aircraft transported it to Kochi for transplantation on Mathews, a patient at the Lisse Hospital.
(With inputs from agencies)
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