Another Tuesday, another heart flies to Chennai hosp

KOCHI: Exactly a week after the organs of a 19-year-old was airlifted to Chennai from here, the heart and lungs of another accident victim was flown to the Tamil Nadu capital, where a 10-year-old girl from Kazakhstan would receive them.
Doctors decided to transplant the organs to the Kazakh girl since there were no Indian takers for 12-year-old Adith Paulson’s heart and lungs.The girl is undergoing treatment at Chennai Fortis hospital.
Adith, a resident of Chellur near Irinjalakuda, had been undergoing treatment at Aster MedCity for brain injuries suffered in a car accident. He was declared brain dead early on Tuesday.
The boy and his father Paulson Kallukkaran were injured when a school bus rammed their car at Kumbidi, Thrissur, around 2.30pm on Saturday. They were shifted to Jubliee Mission Hospital, and the boy was later brought to Kochi for tertiary care.
Adith was heading to meet his mother Shincy and sister Arya at their maternal home when the accident occurred. Kallukkaran is still in Jubilee hospital.
Doctors at Aster told Adith’s relatives that he was brain dead around 6pm on Monday. The Kerala Network for Organ Sharing (KNOS) was alerted after the relatives expressed willingness to donate the organs. " We sent out an alert across Kerala and the rest of the networks. As there was no matching Indian recipient, it went to a foreigner," said KNOS coordinator Dr Noble Gracious.
The Kazakh girl, Dilnaz Isan, has been on the waiting list for the past four months. According to doctors, her heart had stopped beating following a heart attack and she was being given injection for the heart to pump the blood.
" We did the second apnea test and confirmed the brain death at 12.35 am after which the organ alert went out," said Dr Narayanan Unni, medical director, Aster Medcity.
Confusion, however, prevailed as the donor was a minor, and legal sanction could be given only by parents, if alive.
" Since both parents were not nearby, we told the family members that we need the official sanction of a parent who should ideally be present at the hospital and the consent form should be signed in front of the transplant coordinator with the seal."
The family got the sanction with the intervention of Ernakulam district collector M G Rajamanickam. Following a communication from Rajamanickam, the additional district magistrate Ananthakrishnan, the acting collector of Thrissur, reached Jubilee Mission hospital and signed as witness after the mother, Shincy, signed the organ donation papers.
Earlier on Monday morning, Fr Francis Pallikkunnath, director of the Jubilee hospital and Fr Francis Kodiyan, the local priest of Chelur, had visited Kallukkaran in the ICU and informed that his son was dying. They also sought his opinion regarding donating the organs. He agreed.
On Tuesday around 4.17pm, a team of doctors from Fortis, led by Dr Muralikrishnan and transplant coordinator Satish, arrived and harvested the heart in two hours. The ambulance with the harvested organs left the hospital at 6pm through a green corridor, and reached the airport 6.25pm.
Formalities at the airport were completed in 10 minutes and a Deccan Charters aircraft took off to Chennai at 6.35pm.
Relatives said Adith’s body would be taken to Jubilee Mission hospital so that his father could see him a last time.