‘I can breathe easy now..,’ Pakistani teen receives successful heart transplant in Chennai

Ayesha Rashan, a 19-year-old from Pakistan's Karachi underwent a successful heart transplant surgery at Chennai's MGM Healthcare in late January this year.

As per a report by the Times of India, Rashan said, “I can breathe easy now”.

Rashan, who had suffered a cardiac arrest in 2019 and experienced health issues for months, travelled to India for medical treatment. Senior cardiac surgeon Dr. K R Balakrishnan, who was at Malar Hospital in Adyar, advised that a heart transplant was necessary. Rashan was then placed on Tamil Nadu’s organ transplant registry while waiting for a suitable donor.

According to doctors, the cost of a heart transplant can be as high as ₹35 lakh.

To bridge the gap until her heart transplant, doctors fitted Ayesha Rashan with a left ventricular assist device, a surgically implanted mechanical pump that supports the left ventricle in pumping blood. After the procedure, she returned to her home country. However, in 2023, the right side of her heart failed, and she developed an infection, TOI reported.

“It was terrible to see my daughter suffer like that. We reached out to the surgeon. We told him we couldn't afford surgery, but he asked us to come to India,” said her mother, Sanober Rashan to TOI.

The surgery was successful, and Ayesha was taken off life support a few days later. Thanks to financial support from the NGO Aishwarya Trust, along with contributions from former patients and doctors, Rashan's family was able to settle the hospital bill. She was discharged on April 17.