This story is from September 21, 2021

Kolkata’s 1st lung transplant to give Covid patient new life

Organ donation and transplant movement in Bengal is set to attain a new height with eastern India’s first lung transplant scheduled to be conducted on Monday night. The double lung transplant will be carried out on a man in his early 40s, who has been on ECMO for 106 days due to Covid.
Kolkata’s 1st lung transplant to give Covid patient new life
Representative image
KOLKATA: Organ donation and transplant movement in Bengal is set to attain a new height with eastern India’s first lung transplant scheduled to be conducted on Monday night. The double lung transplant will be carried out on a man in his early 40s, who has been on ECMO for 106 days due to Covid.
The flight carrying the lungs from Surat landed in Kolkata at 10.10pm and the organ was immediately ferried to Medica Superspecialty Hospital.
A source at Medica said the patient, who worked at an IT major, was hospitalized with Covid. The ECMO team suggested a transplant as his lungs were completely damaged. Around the same time, a man was declared brain dead in a Surat hospital but no match was found for his organs in Gujarat. NOTTO, eastern zone found it matched the Medica patient and allocated it to him.
An ECMO team from Medica went to the Surat hospital to retrieve and harvest the organ. Even as they flew back with the lung, another team here prepared for the transplant. The surgery started around 10.30pm and the transplant team was still on the job till last report came in. “For about a year, our lung transplant team has been preparing to take up the surgery as and when the occasion demanded. We hope all goes well,” said Medica Group chairman Alok Roy. IPGMER is the first hospital in Bengal to get a lung transplant licence.
Doctors said lung transplant was a complicated procedure, more complex than that of heart, kidney or liver. “I am happy about this development in organ donation and transplant in Bengal,” said Kolkata resident Rupayan Roy, who underwent heart transplant five years ago. Back then, Kolkata had no heart transplant facility. “Our flight from Kolkata to Chennia via Hyderabad two days ago had a heart being flown to Chennai from Hyderabad. And now, this first lung transplant is being held here,” said Roy, now holidaying in Puducherry.
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