In a rare and immediate-cross-medical effort, doctors in Riyadh successfully suffered a donor heart with a seven-year-old Saudi boy’s heart failure. The heart, taken from a brain-loving donor in Abu Dhabi, was taken to Saudi Arabia and implanted into a high-risk surgery coordinated between Saudi and UAE health officials. This lifestyle underlines both the accuracy of the transplantation logistics and the increasing strength of regional healthcare participation.
Complex position and immediate meed
Faisal, a seven -year -old Saudi child, was struggling with advanced heart failure due to the congenital defects present since birth. Despite the efforts of complete treatment, including various drugs, respiratory support and even pacemaker implantation, no significant improvement in their condition was shown. The severity of his illness required immediate placement in the heart transplant list. No other viable options left, the transplant became a race against time.The success of the transplant rests on a narrow five -hour window, which allows the maximum time to transplant to transplantation to transplantation to transplantation. This time sensitivity gave an important challenge, especially located abroad in the donor Abu Dhabi. Careful planning and fast action are required to coordinate for extraction, air transport, and preparation of surgical teams.Dr. According to Felix Wang Tsai, Pediatric Cardiology Surgery Advisor at KFSHRC, Faisal reached a very serious position, giving the only chance to survive the transplant. The KFshrc usually performs only 10 to 15 heart transplants annually, emphasizing the important need to increase the availability of the donor within Saudi Arabia to support more patients such as facial.
Smooth border cooperation
The transplant was made possible in collaboration with the support of the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation and the UAE national program for donations and transplants of human organs and tissue (Hyatt). The process included the donor’s family and all the necessary regulatory approval, underlining a strong human partnership between the two countries.Ahmed Jaffrey, director of donor affairs and organ allocation at Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation, wished how Donor data was quickly analyzed and shared with KFSHRC, where Faisal was listed as a high priority patient. With approval from the Medical Ethics Center of the Ministry of Health, Abu Dhabi was sent to a special medical team and private aircraft for recovery and rapid transfer of organ. The Executive Director of the Heart Center of Excellence at KFSHRC, Dr. Honey al-Sergi told Arab News that the matter gives an example of the maturity of Gulf Health Service Cooperation. He emphasized that successful transplant played an important role in expanding life-saving opportunities within hours.In a statement, the hospital said, “This is another successful matter of advanced regional cooperation in organ transplantation,”The hospital further confirmed that the life-saving process was only done only after the consent of the donor family, all the necessary regulatory approval, and the Saudi center for organ transplants for the Saudi center and the UAE’s national program for donation and transplanting of human organs and tissue.
King Faisal Specialist Hospital Rolls and achievements of
KFshRC’s Heart Center, recognized globally for its advanced cardiac care, played an important role in Faisal’s successful transplant. The hospital has pioneered several groundbreaking cardiac surgery, including the first robotic heart transplant of the world without chest incisions and robotic implantation of the Artificial Heart Pump (Badi-Hart-Hart Pump (Biwad-HMII). These innovations have launched KFSHRC at the forefront of cardiac surgery, strengthened their position as the leading cardiac center in the Middle East and North Africa and ranks globally between the world’s top academic medical centers.In 2024, the hospital gave 293,381 virtual advice, marking an increase of 58.2% year-on-year, reflecting its extended healthcare access and integration of advanced technologies. Faisal’s successful transplant is another milestone to provide special, state -of -the -art care in the mission of KFshrc.
