Organ Transport Breakthrough: Bengaluru Uses Metro for Liver
Summary: When every minute mattered, Bengaluru’s metro helped deliver a donor liver just in time. A remarkable act of coordination saved a life.
Beating traffic, saving lives
Bengaluru has set an example by transporting a donated human liver for transplant, by the Namma Metro. This is the second instance of transporting a transplant organ by metro services, the first one being done in Hyderabad.
The liver was to be sent from Vydehi Hospital to Sparsh Hospital for a critical patient. Keeping in mind that travel by road would take about two hours, it was a prudent move for the transportation to be done by metro, bypassing the traffic woes and reaching the destination in an hour or so. Time is the crucial factor here.
Transporting the Organ
On August 1, at 8.38 pm, the organ, in safe custody of a doctor and seven medical staff, was taken by ambulance from Vydehi Hospital to Whitefield Metro Station. On reaching the metro station, an Assistant Security Officer (ASO) and Metro personnel received the team and completed the relevant formalities of documentation and required security checks.
Thereafter, the team boarded the metro train, which departed from Whitefield at 8.42 pm, and arrived at Rajarajeshwarinagar at 9.48 pm, where they were received by another ASO and Metro personnel, and subsequently escorted to a waiting ambulance.
Support That Made It Possible
The support and coordination by the ASOs, Home Guards, and Metro personnel is commendable as they ensured that the organ reached the Sparsh Hospital in time for a crucial transplant procedure and saved a life, without any glitches. The medical team offered thanks to them.
This exercise was carried out under the guidelines of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and Joint Procedure Order (JPO) of the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL).
Inputs from various media sources.
