The Bengaluru Metro is turning out to be the quickest mode of transport for organs requiring quick transplantation to patients. On Thursday, doctors from the Sparsh Hospital transported a pair of lungs and a heart using the metro from Goraguntepalya to two different parts of the city.
This marks the first instance when organs were transported across multiple lines of the metro. Previously, organs were transported – for the first time – along the Purple Line in August and a month later along the Green Line.
The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL), in a statement, said that “the heart was boarded at Goraguntepalya Metro Station (YPI) at 09:34 hrs and reached Banashankari Metro Station (BSNK) at 10:15 hrs, covering 17 stations in just 41 minutes. The lungs were boarded at the same station at 10:05 hrs and reached Bommasandra Metro Station (BMSD) at 11:13 hrs, after an interchange at RV Road Station, covering 31 stations in 1 hour and 8 minutes.”
While the heart was sent to Aster RV Hospital, located close to the Rashtriya Vidyalaya metro station – the interchange connecting Green and Yellow Lines, the pair of lungs travelled further along the Yellow Line to reach Bommasandra, situated 1.5 km away from Narayana Institute of Cardiac Sciences. “The operation was efficiently coordinated by officers of the BMRCL Security Department, along with station officials and the medical team,” the release said.
In August this year, Bengaluru became the second city in the country to transport organs by the metro after a liver was taken from Whitefield to Rajarajeshwarinagar. In September, a heart was transported on the Green Line from Yeshwantpur station to South End Circle station.