Indian Heart Beats In Pakistani Girl: Chennai Doctor Funds Karachi Girl’s Transplant

Nineteen year old Pakistani girl Ayesha Rashan is all smiles. She has a heart of an Indian beating in her after a transplant, A giving her a new lease of life.

The young lady from Karachi had developed heart complications five years ago when she was just 14 and doctors in Pakistan  referred her to  renowned Indian heart surgeon, Chennai based Dr K R Balakrishnan.

Her heart ultimately failed and doctors at the MGM Healthcare  put her on an artificial heart pump. However a valve leak led to a major complication and a heart transplant became a must to save her life.

Though a donor heart was available in Delhi,  but her single mother Sanober couldn’t afford as it would cost at least  35 lakh rupees.

It was then Dr Balakrishnan, the Director of Heart and Lung Transplant who has been treating her since 2019 put his personal funds to fund Ayesha’s surgery. Soon a  Trust, a few other doctors and patients too contributed for  the surgery and made the life-saving heart transplant possible. Dr Balakrishnan told tellmystory.in “We have a connect with every patient. You can’t suddenly give up. And when she needed this and they had no money and we did our best and eventually I am happy she’s doing well”. 

Doctors say Ayesha was fortunate as there was no other  request for the donor heart then. “Ayesha was lucky. Had anyone else asked for it, being a foreigner she would have had no chance otherwise”, added Dr. Suresh Rao, Co-Director, Institute of Heart and Lung Transplant.