Change of heart — India gives Karachi teen new lease of life

PTI

Karachi/Chennai, April 28

The heartwarming story of a 19-year-old Pakistani girl getting a new lease of life after a successful heart transplant in India highlights how borders can be eased for humanitarian purposes and the challenges faced by heart patients in the neighbouring country.

Ayesha Rashan from Karachi underwent a heart transplant surgery at MGM Healthcare, Chennai. After a suitable brain-dead donor was available, she underwent cardiac transplantation on January 31, 2024. Following procedures, she was discharged this month.

Trust, generous patients pitch in

The biggest challenge was there was no money. The condition required Rs 30-40 lakh for treatment... we had to raise the money through a trust, our own resources and generous patients. —Dr KR Balakrishnan

Dr KR Balakrishnan, Chairman, Cardiac Sciences Director, Institute of Heart and Lung Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support, said Ayesha first came to them in 2019 when she was 14 years old with severe heart failure and a very poorly functioning heart.

“She became very sick and had a cardiac arrest and had to be resuscitated with CPR and put on a machine called ECMO to sustain circulation then we put in an artificial heart pump that time and eventually she recovered and went back to her country,” he said.

“Over the next couple of years, she became sick again because one of her valves started leaking... and she developed severe failure on the right side of the heart and developed an infection and it became very difficult to treat her in that country,” he added.

Balakrishnan said getting a visa for her was very difficult. “Her mother is a single mother, they had no money or resources. We had to take care of the entire expenses including repeated hospitalisation,” Dr Balakrishnan said.

Ayesha underwent surgery with the support of Aishwarya Trust, a Chennai-based NGO, and other transplant patients’ contributions. The transplant was done after getting a donor organ from a brain-dead elderly man from Delhi.

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