In a tale of hope transcending boundaries, a 9-year-old girl from Saudi Arabia received a new lease on life thanks to a heart transplant from a brain-dead donor in the UAE. This remarkable case is among three heart transplants conducted within a span of 24 hours at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre. The hearts, sourced from Abu Dhabi, Jeddah, and Riyadh, were swiftly transported to Riyadh to save three patients suffering from heart muscle weakness and failure.
The urgency of these surgeries highlighted their exceptional nature, as medical professionals worked against the clock to transplant new hearts into these critically ill patients. Ideally, the time frame from heart removal from the donor to its transplantation into the recipient should not surpass five hours for a successful outcome.
The young girl, who had been battling a weak heart, had previously survived a near-fatal episode and was fitted with an artificial pump in March 2023. Despite the intervention, she remained hospitalized, dependent on the pump as her heart could not function independently. Her wait for a suitable donor ended when a match was found through the collaborative efforts of the Saudi Centre for Organ Transplantation and the UAE's National Program for Donation and Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues (Hayat).
A specialized team from Riyadh traveled to Abu Dhabi to perform the heart extraction surgery on a brain-dead patient at Cleveland Hospital. The heart was then swiftly transported via a private flight to Saudi Arabia and delivered to the hospital, where the transplant surgery was successfully completed. The girl is now under observation and receiving ongoing medical care.
Another case involved a 40-year-old man who received a heart from a brain-dead donor in Jeddah, all within the same 24-hour period. The medical team from the hospital traveled to King Abdulaziz Medical City in Jeddah to retrieve the heart and returned to Riyadh for the successful transplant. The third patient, a 41-year-old man with fourth-degree heart failure, had also been fitted with an artificial pump in 2023. He was given a new chance at life when a compatible donor was found at King Abdulaziz Medical City in Riyadh. This patient is currently undergoing post-transplant medical follow-up.
