Track –III
India-Pakistan Heart-to-Heart
Pak Girl, Indian Heart
Organs for transplant are available in India, but remain unused due to the huge expense: Doctors
Rashmi Talwar
AMRITSAR 4TH MAY 2024- Dr KR Balakrishna and Aishwarya Trust, Chennai in India came to the rescue of Ayesha Rashan, a 19-year-old girl from Karachi, Pakistan. Ayesha received a life-saving heart transplant in India, despite facing financial and health challenges. Dr Bala and Chennai-based Trust provided crucial support, to save her life.
Ayesha is keen to be a fashion designer and relook at her new life with a new heart albeit Indian this time, is looking forward to studying as soon as she is well enough to attend classes, as Ayesha spoke from Karachi, in a feeble voice, but a high spirit visible in her shining eyes. As a single mother Sanober Ayesha’s mother said I could not have raised this kind of amount and I couldn’t have been able to spend this kind of money on my child. It’s unbelievable! I am too happy, I don’t have words to thank the doctors in India”, highlighting the collaborative efforts that made the transplant possible.
Ayesha had a long ordeal with her poor heart function; she suffered a cardiac arrest in Karachi, due to a pre-existing heart condition. Seeking specialized treatment, she was cleared for a medical visa by the Government of India, enabling Ayesha to travel to Chennai for medical evaluation. Her health complications persisted, prompting her return to Chennai post-Covid-19 in June 2023.
While answering a query from Sam Daniel to a Television Channel, Dr KR Balakrishnan Director and Chairman, Institute of Heart and Lung Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support, Chennai, explained –“Ayesha’s health struggles began in 2019 when she came to us, she was just 14 years old, she was very sick with severe heart dysfunction and if I remember right, her heart stopped and we had to put her on CPR and temporary ECMO pump, then an Artificial Heart Pump which is quite expensive, but a charity from London funded and helped. After that, they went back to Karachi. But when she went back she again became sick, her pump got infected in Pakistan, and there was a leak, and in Pakistan, they don’t have facilities to monitor this pump. So she had to be constantly in touch with the physicians, for the last two years”.
Dr. Balakrishnan reflected on Ayesha’s journey, emphasizing the financial challenges she faced. And added –“After that, she badly needed a procedure to be done and needed a visa desperately, and we helped, by this time they had run out of money and as a single mother she came to us, it was not easy to come without any money. Half the time Ayesha was unconscious as she had a severe heart leak in her right side. Options to treat her were not simple! Eventually through Aishwarya Trust, my finances, and some funds by patients, we collectively funded the entire operation. On January 31, 2024, a heart was airlifted from Delhi to Chennai, paving the way for Ayesha’s life-saving transplant surgery. The heart was too big for her and it came through a string of logistics on a flight from Delhi as no request for an ‘available heart for transplant’ was made from any “Indian”, so Ayesha was lucky to get it. Thankfully she received an Indian Heart well.
Ayesha successfully underwent a heart transplant in India, marking a significant chapter in her life’s perplexing journey. Ayesha’s story underscores the importance of international cooperation in healthcare and the impact of individual acts of kindness.
Pix Caption: –
Ayesha Rashid, a 19-year-old girl from Karachi, Pakistan gets a ‘loving’ heart from India
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BOX
Heart to Heart: Statesmanship of PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2003
Pak’s Baby Noor Fatima won hearts and paved the way for Indian-Pakistani relations post-Indian Parliament attack of 2001
In July 2003, the beatific face of a Pakistani Girl suffering from two holes in the heart splashed on the front pages of newspapers in both India and Pakistan. Television Channels clamoured to catch the smiling look of Noor Fatima after her successful heart surgery in India.
And sure enough two-year-old Noor’s Noor –or the ‘Divine Light’ led the way and travelled into the hearts of both India and Pakistan to bettering India-Pak relations. She waved Indians goodbye after undergoing successful open heart surgery in the southern Indian city of Bangalore and churned a frenzy of emotion, becoming the symbolic little girl who restored ties between India -and Pakistan.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee grabbed the opportunity and announced the free treatment, finance, and travel of 20 Pakistani children and it turned into a heart-to-heart, with both countries opening up borders, leading to the restoration of people-to-people contact after decades between two warring neighbours. Culture smiled, Music trapeze, poetry wafted and Dance flowed, across the bloody Radcliff line dividing the two nations.
It was the little Pakistani girl Noor Fatima who won the hearts of Indians around the country, with her big dark innocent eyes, and shy smile, who steered the conscience of two nations to come together. Hundreds of Indians sent cards, flowers, and gifts and offered money to help pay for her treatment. Schoolchildren prayed for her recovery. While a queen’s reception awaited Noor across the Wagah Attari Border to her homeland in Lahore, Pakistan.
Noor Fatima had two holes in her heart, and doctors in Pakistan advised her parents to take her to India for treatment. She came with her parents, via the first bus to run between the Pakistani city of Lahore and New Delhi, post Parliament Attack, after a year and a half. The Indo-Pak Dosti bus too was initiated by PM Vajpayee in February 1999. The two sides thereafter restored full diplomatic ties.
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PIX CAPTION:
Pakistan Two-year-old Baby Noor Fatima in 2003 gets free heart treatment in India
Rashmi Talwar Saanjh-Togetherness 
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