Just a heartbeat away from saving life

Chennai: The city police’s initiative to devise green corridors to transport hearts in the city has found supporters on Facebook and the press. Last month, police vans escorted a heart, intended for transplantation: covering 11 km of Chennai’s streets in nine minutes.

The police say that they get very little time to perform one of their toughest jobs. “The hospital informs us an hour prior to their requirement, the Commissioner then gives us the go-ahead to create this special corridor,” they said.

The whole operation is handled by an officer of the rank of deputy commissioner. “We are instructed to pose minimum discomfort to the other motorists when the corridor is created,” an official added.

“The next step involves identifying the shortest route because ‘The shorter the time taken the stronger the heart will be’: this is what doctors always tell us.”

The procedure becomes much easier if donor and recipient are in the same hospital, as Dr Nagarajan, professor of cardio thoracic surgery at Rajiv Gandhi General hospital, said, but this was often not the case, and in the absence of an airlift, these corridors were very useful.

“When the heart is removed from the donor’s body it is put into a box, maintained at 4 degrees Centigrade, in a solution which contains chemicals like potassium and nutrients.

The chemical stops the heart so that it functions less and its tissue is not affected,” said Dr Paul Ramesh, senior heart transplant surgeon at Apollo Hospitals.  It has to be put into the recipient’s body within four hours of the donor’s death.

The movement of the heart right after being taken from the body of the donor to the lift and the waiting vehicle is well-co-ordinated. Sixty policemen are involved in the task. Patrol vehicles and men with microphones are stationed on the route to enlist the general motorist’s co-operation.

Six officers in two vehicles travel with the ambulance, which moves at a speed of 100 km/hr. The whole operation lasts about 13 minutes, with the police keen to help with other such initiatives in the public interest.