Hvovi Minocherhomji, the 22-year-old Bandra resident who, early this year had been told by doctors in Bombay that she had just a few months to live, underwent a successful heart transplant procedure in Madras on June 16, 2014. Three years ago she had been diagnosed as suffering from cardiomyopathy (swelling of the heart), and since a heart transplant operation, her best option to live, could not be performed in Bombay, the family planned to go to the US. They were advised against this as the waiting period there was two years.
Hvovi Minocherhomji "green corridor"
Fate had other plans in store, and the family decided to go to Madras where, on June 16 she received the heart of a male 27-year-old road accident victim. The government authorities in Madras were extremely cooperative and created a "green corridor” by halting traffic so that the ambulance carrying the vital organ could transport it from the Government General Hospital to the Fortis Malar Hospital, a distance of about 13 kms, without needing to stop at red lights, in a record 13 minutes. While the heart was on its way, the patient’s chest cavity was opened to receive the donor heart and the transplant began immediately on arrival of the organ. The "new” heart started beating soon thereafter.
"It was an amazing moment in my life when I spoke to my daughter after the surgery. She looked very fresh and fine. I have no words for the mother who had the courage to donate the organs of her son,” Hvovi’s father Aspi told Daily News and Analysis (DNA) of June 19, 2014 over the phone from Madras. According to The Times of India (TOI) of June 18, the donor’s mother works as a village health nurse. She told that newspaper: "I have heard a lot about organ donation. I always thought that if something happened to me, I would want my organs to be donated…But I never thought I would be in a place where I would have to take a call on my son. But this is what he would have wanted.” When grief counselors brought up the matter of donating her brain dead son’s organs, she readily agreed, TOI wrote, telling them through her tears "how proud she was of her son and the lives he would save.”
The recipient’s mother Armaity opened up to DNA about the need for awareness on cadaver donations among the public across the country. "It is a strange paradoxical situation, where you are waiting for someone to die so that your loved one can live. There is a strange sense of guilt. The real hero here is the donor family. For a mother to lose a 27-year-old and still make a decision to donate organs is the ultimate gesture of humanity,” she expressed to TOI on June 18. She also praised the role played by the government of Tamil Nadu in the matter.
Further good news was published in the Jame Jamshed Weekly on June 29, 2014 that Hvovi is recovering well, has started talking and walking and was shifted out of the intensive care unit. Her heart’s pumping efficiency has gone up after the transplant. She was to be discharged on July 1, but will need to spend two more weeks in Madras for regular check-ups, reported the DNA of that day.