Preeti (inset), who is living with a borrowed heart for the past 17 years, currently works at the Organ Retrieval Banking Organization at the AIIMS in New Delhi. Kochi: “Had the family of that 14-year-old boy not consented to donate his organs, I would not have been sitting here talking to you. I don’t know that boy or his family personally. But I know one thing, they are like gods to me and my family,” says Preeti Unhale, the first heart transplant recipient in India.
Daughter of Madhya Pradesh health minister Rustam Singh and wife of Prakash Unhale IFS, Priti was a special invitee at a function organized by the IMA House in Kochi to mark the 50th anniversary of the world's first human heart transplant.
Preeti, who is living with a borrowed heart for the past 17 years, currently works at the Organ Retrieval Banking Organization at the AIIMS in New Delhi.
The first human to human heart transplant procedure was performed on December 3, 1967 at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. Coincidentally, Preeti’s birthday falls on December 3. She collapsed while celebrating her 26th birthday and was rushed to the AIIMS where her condition was diagnosed as dilated cardiomyopathy.
As transplantation was the only option left to save her life, cardiologists P Venugopal and P K Talwar gave her the confidence to undergo the surgery. The complicated surgical procedures to transplant the boy’s heart on Preeti took place on January 3, 2001.
Seventeen years have passed since Preeti received the heart. A symbol of hope for patients with chronic heart ailments, she continues to live a pretty normal and healthy life.
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