KEM gets licence to perform heart transplants, first public hosp in state

Mumbai: Fifty-six years after King Edward Memorial (KEM) hospital in Parel performed the first two human heart transplants in the state, the largest civic-run hospital is all set to start the transplant programme this year.

The hospital, which received the licence for a heart transplant a month back, will be the first public hospital in the state to have the programme.

Dr Sangeeta Rawat, dean, KEM Hospital, “We are in the process of purchasing equipment required for transplants. We will seek guidance and help from experienced heart surgeons in the city for our programme. We plan to start the service at the earliest this year.”

While heart and lung transplants are now commonly performed in private hospitals in the city, it was in 1968 that Dr PK Sen and his team from KEM Hospital carried out two transplants with limited success, barely six months after South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard performed the world’s first heart transplant.

After this, there was a long gap and end-stage heart patients went to hospitals in south India for the transplant. In 2015, Fortis Hospital, Mulund, started heart transplants.

The cost of transplant surgery at a private hospital is close to ₹25-30 lakh. In Mumbai alone, 51 patients are on the Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee (ZTCC) waiting list for a heart transplant.

Dr Hemant Pathare, heart and lung transplant surgeon at Jaslok Hospital, who has approached KEM Hospital to help set up the heart transplant programme, said, “KEM Hospital is my alma mater, and I am looking forward to the hospital to start the programme. I have volunteered to help them set up the programme and train the doctors.” Dr Pathare added that India has the largest number of heart failure patients in the world; therefore, a heart transplant programme at a public hospital will not only bring down the transplant cost but also boost cadaver organ donations. At present, almost all the cadaver donations take place in private hospitals.

Dr Pathare, who sees around 100 patients requiring heart transplants in a year, said most of them die before being put on the waitlist as they are referred to the hospital late or waiting for the donor’s heart.

“While heart transplant is the gold standard of treatment for low ejection- you have or are at risk for heart failure, the other option is putting left ventricular assist devices (LVADs), which costs ₹1 crore. A transplant programme in a public hospital will boost cadaver donation since they are likely to have a high cadaver donor rate,” he said.