The heart is a muscular organ — about the size of a clenched fist — located in the middle of the rib cage. It works non-stop, pumping around 2,000 gallons of blood throughout the body on a daily basis, beating around 2.5 billion times circulating nearly 50-65 million gallons of blood over an average lifetime. If not cared for, factors such as high cholesterol, obesity and high blood pressure coupled with vices such as smoking and excessive consumption of alcohol can severely damage your blood vessels and your heart.

A heart transplant is a surgical operation wherein a severely damaged heart resulting in end-stage heart failure is replaced with a healthy donor heart. When the heart starts to fail, other vital organs are also affected. So, a heart transplant needs to be done before other organ damage starts. If a heart failure is not treated on time, it can lead to several complications while severely hindering your ability to perform any physical work. It could also cause intense breathlessness.

Being diagnosed with heart failure means that your heart is unable to pump enough blood to effectively cater to your body’s needs. However, this doesn’t mean that your heart is about to stop — it simply means that the main pumping chambers in your heart have become too stiff and can no longer pump with adequate force or that your heart is no longer able to fill itself up with enough blood between beats. Heart failure can either affect both sides or only one side of the heart. The most common conditions that cause cardiac failure are:

• Coronary artery disease
• High blood pressure
• Leaking or blocked valves
• Cardiomyopathy
• Viral cardiac infections
• Inherited forms of cardiac disease
• Congenital cardiac disease
• Children administered certain medicines for leukemia
• Women whose hearts have been weakened by pregnancy/childbirth

A team of heart transplant surgeons will initially assess your eligibility for a heart transplant. You will then be explained about the risks involved. They will also evaluate your medical history, test results, social history, and conduct psychological tests to analyse where and how you might need support during and after your surgery. If you are deemed suitable and are willing to have a heart transplant, you will be put on the waiting list. Most often, a heart is donated based on the level of urgency and according to the severity of one’s medical condition.

The donated heart will be from an individual who has recently passed away and is an organ donor or whose family has agreed to donate their heart. When a heart becomes available for donation, factors such as whether it matches your blood group, your weight and size will be taken into consideration. Further, your other organs, such as the kidneys and liver, should also be working normally in order to be eligible for a donation.