The hunt for a brain-dead lung donor has begun to initiate the proceedings for lung transplant of Covid-infected Education Minister Jagarnath Mahto, who is surviving on life support at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) hospital in Chennai since October 19, doctors from the private healthcare facility in the Tamil Nadu Capital said on Monday.
“We have started looking for a suitable lung donor for the Jharkhand minister. He was kept on ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) here, but given his condition, we will have to go for a lung transplant,” said Dr. Apar Jindal, the Clinical Director of Lung Transplant, Interventional Pulmonology and Chest Medicine at MGM.
ECMO is a life support system in which the gas exchange happens outside the body through a machine instead of the lungs in order to allow healing time to the organ.
Fifty-three-year-old Mahto, a Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) legislator from Dumri assembly constituency, tested positive for Covid-19 on September 28 and was admitted in state-run Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi. He was shifted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Bhagwan Mahavir Medica Superspecialty Hospital in the State capital on October 1 and put on non-invasive ventilation. The minister was flown to Chennai on October 19 after his lungs showed no signs of improvement.
While the search for a suitable lung donor is on, doctors at MGM said it was difficult to predict how soon the minister would get a donor. The organ donation will happen through government agencies and patients registered in Chennai will be the first preference for donation if the donor is from Tamil Nadu, doctors said. Mahto is registered as a patient in Chennai.
“There are other criteria that we need to fulfil in order to proceed with the transplant. The donor will have to be of the same blood group as the minister. The donor will also have to have a similar built as the receiver and have healthy lungs,” said Dr. Suresh Rao, Co-director of Institute of Heart and Lung Transplantation & Mechanical Circulatory Assist Device at MGM.
Rao said that at least four Covid-19 patients have undergone lung transplant at the hospital so far and three of them were doing well. One of the four patients could not survive, he added. “The success rate of lung transplant is 70 per cent. Three of the four Covid patients who underwent lung transplant here have recovered and are leading a normal life,” said Rao. A lung transplant at the hospital would cost at least Rs 30 lakh, and the cost may go up depending on the condition of the patient, doctors at MGM said.
“A patient is usually kept in ICU for at least 20 days after a lung transplant and kept under observation even after that,” said Rao.
At least five ministers in the Jharkhand Cabinet have tested positive for Covid-19 so far. State Minority Welfare Minister Haji Hussain Ansari died of a cardiac arrest a day after testing Covid-negative at Medanta Hospital in Ranchi. Health Minister Banna Gupta, Drinking Water and Sanitation Minister Mithilesh Thakur and Agriculture Minister Badal Patralekh also tested positive for Covid-19 earlier. All three of them recovered without suffering from any medical complication.