Headlines
Kerala heart transplant patient doing well: Doctor
Kochi, July 26
A 46-year-old Kerala
autorickshaw driver, who underwent heart transplant surgery here on
Friday, was recovering well and will be taken off the ventilator on
Monday, a doctor said on Sunday.
Jose Chacko Periyapuram, the
cardio thoracic surgeon who performed the surgery, said patient A.
Mathew would be "taken off the ventilator tomorrow (Monday)".
"He is doing fine now and tomorrow onwards we will be able to speak to him and he will be given fluids," said Periyapuram.
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Sunday visited the hospital.
"This
became a reality because of the team work of so many people, who worked
for this to become a reality," Chandy told Periyapuram's medical team.
The
surgery was done as part of the Kerala government's organ donation
programme. After the success of this surgery, the state government
announced that it would go forward with this new programme with more
vigour.
On Friday, Periyapuram's team flew from Kochi to
Thiruvananthapuram to remove the heart of a brain-dead man named
Neelakanda Sharma.
With the heart, the doctors returned to the
Kochi hospital, about 210 km away. The heart was flown with the help of
the Indian Navy.