The first heart transplant recipient of Eastern India is set to be released from Fortis Hospital within a few days, said doctors on June 9.

An expert nurse is going to accompany the patient to educate the family about hygiene and other important aspects of his care while he gets back to his normal life in his village in Deogarh, Jharkhand. Doctors also confirmed that the hospital is going to support his medication expense till an alternative means is arranged.

The event started with formally thanking the Airport Authority of India, Commandant of CISF at NSCBI Airport, the Commissioner of Police of Kolkata Police, the Commissioner of Police of Bidhannagar Commissionerate and Dr Aditi Kishore Sarkar, Additional Director
of Health Services, Government of West Bengal and Senior Nodal Officer of NOTTO.

Doctors also thanked the patient, West Bengal’s first heart recipient who was operated at Fortis Malar Hospital in Chennai, for championing the cause of Organ Donation enthusiastically. Addressing the media persons, Dr K M Mandana, Transplant Surgeon, Fortis Hospital, Anandapur said, “The patient has responded well to the treatment and we are planning to discharge him from the hospital within the next 2-3 days.

He will be travelling by road and will be accompanied by his brother and our staff nurse. The staff nurse will be going with him to check on his home surroundings and to educate his family as to how to ensure that he does not contract any infections. We are providing
him medications till we can find an alternative mean to support him financially.”

The patient was suffering from Dilated Cardiomyopathy that required a heart transplant. He was on the waitlist since January 2017. The recipient following the successful operation has been under constant observation at the hospital. He was shifted to the single room  early last week. He has been responding well to the treatment protocol.

Emphasising on the need of organ donations, Dr Tapas Raychaudhury, Transplant Surgeon, Fortis Hospital, Anandapur said, “This is just the beginning. We need active support from the print and electronic media to promote awareness about organ donation and to form a pressure group so that more and more doctors support the cause.” This was the first interstate transplant where a heart was transported from Bengaluru in Karnataka to Kolkata.

A green corridor was also created to cover 18 kilometres long busy stretch in 18 minutes with the help of Kolkata Traffic Police and  other stakeholders. An average of five lakh Indians dies every year while waiting for an organ replacement. In 2016, only 720 organ donations took place in India but there are millions waiting for an organ transplant. With organ donation rate in India being 0.5 per million population, which is far less compared to over 30 donors per million in some western countries, there is a great need to create awareness about this noble cause of organ donation.