A Pakistani teenager has got a new lease of life after receiving a heart transplant at a hospital in Chennai.
The 19-year-old, identified as Ayesha Rashid, from Pakistan’s Karachi had been sick since 2019. She received the heart from a 69-year-old Indian donor from New Delhi, as per PTI.
Ayesha was treated at the MGM Healthcare hospital. Following the transplant, Ayesha thanked the Indian government for issuing her a visa. Her doctors were quoted as saying that she has been discharged following the surgery.
Dr KR Balakrishnan, the Director of the Institute of Heart and Lung Transplant at MGM Healthcare, said that Ayesha’s single-mother could barely arrange the finances.
“Her single mother had no money, no resources at all. With great difficulty, they arranged some finance and came here. We had to take care of the patient’s entire expenses including her hospitalisation,” said Balakrishnan.
Balakrishnan further said that the kind of treatment that Ayesha got in Chennai is not available in Pakistan. He further said that such treatment is not available widely outside of North America and Europe and India offers such treatment at a fraction of the cost in the West.
“In that country (Pakistan), managing patients with artificial heart pumps is not easy because the equipment required to monitor is not there…Outside of North America and Western Europe, not many countries can do this. The cost incurred here is a tiny fraction of what it would have cost in other countries in the world. Technology in this country is very good,” said Balakrishnan to ANI.
Separately, Ayesha’s mother, Sanobar, said they got an emergency visa for the transplant.
As per a report in PTI, Ayesha had been ailing since 2019 when she suffered a cardiac arrest. Considering her condition, her family consulted Balakrishnan and Dr Suresh Rao, Co-Director of MGM’s Institute of Heart and Lung Transplant. The medical team advised a heart transplant as her heart pump was leaking. She was also put on Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), a process that involves machines functioning as artificial heart and lungs.
Ayesha received her heart from a man who was declared brain-dead in New Delhi, as per the report, which added that the transplant was carried out free of cost.
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An Indian heart gives 19-year-old Pakistani girl a new lease of life
