Jaipur: Heart transplant hope for 21 at SMS hosp

Jaipur: The first heart transplant at Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Hospital on Thursday has come as a ray of hope for 21 patients who have applied for it and awaiting for their turn to get a new lease of life.

The cardiologists have listed these patients as candidates requiring heart transplant that their heart is functioning below 20% of the capacity.

On Thursday, hospital doctors had retrieved a heart from a 25-year-old braid dead person and transplanted it into a 17-year-old patient suffering from heart failure. “The recovery of the heart recipient is satisfactory,” said Dr Anil Sharma, head of the department (cardiothoracic surgery).

Jaipur has become a prominent centre in the country for heart transplants as three hospitals — two private and a government — have already performed five heart transplants in the past four years.

According to the State Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO), the waiting list of patients requiring organs transplant in web registry of Rajasthan Network for Organ Sharing (RNOS) are as follows: 320 patients for kidney transplant, 43 liver transplant and 21 heart transplant.

With increasing need of patients suffering from chronic kidney, liver and heart diseases, SMS Medical College has started preparations for expanding its facilities for organ transplant. While giving organ donation a major impetus, the hospital is constructing a multi-storey building near its Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics (ITO) wing and a Centre for Excellence for Organ Transplant at one of the floors of the hospital building.