A cross-border ray of hope emerged when a nine-year-old girl from KSA was recently offered a second life by the heart of a deceased person who was a UAE resident, declared brain dead.
The case was one of three transplants conducted at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in under twenty-four hours. The living hearts that originate from Abu Dhabi, Jeddah, and Riyadh were transported to the three patients in Riyadh who have weakness and failure of the heart muscles.
These operations were considered to be rather drastic because the doctors did not have much time to perform them the three surgeries were as follows: However, for the surgical process to be successful the time that is taken in subtracting the heart from the donor and implanting it in the patient should be at most five hours only.
A stroke of luck in life
The nine-year-old girl, who had weak heart muscle, had a battle with death earlier with which a pump was fitted in March 2023. She was still admitted to a hospital after the surgery because her heart could not depend on the pump alone. She was required to wait until a donor was online.
There was a finally identification of a matching donor due to the collaboration of the Saudi Centre for Organ Transplantation and the National Program for Donation and Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues [Hayat] in UAE. A special team from Riyadh first flew via air and then a heart removal surgery was conducted from the brain-dead patient, admitted at Abu Dhabi’s Cleveland Hospital.
It was then ferried by a private flight, to Saudi’s airport, then to the hospital the surgery being performed and successful. The young girl is at present in the hospital being observed and is also scheduled for her checkup.
The second one was of a 40-year-old man who got a heart from a brain-dead patient in Jeddah, all in only one day. The hospital’s medical team went to the King Abdulaziz Medical City in Jeddah for the heart removal surgery to be later transported to Riyadh for the successful heart transplant operation.
The third patient was a 41-year-old man who had a fourth-degree heart failure. He had an artificial pump put in him in 2023. The man got a new life after a brain-dead match at King Abdulaziz Medical City in Riyadh.
They are at present in the follow-up after the transplant.