National Heart Transplant Day: The Story of India's Longest-Living Heart Transplant Survivor, Preeti Unhale
Twenty-five years ago, in November 2000, Preeti arrived at AIIMS Delhi in a wheelchair, exhausted, breathless, and standing at death's door.
Preeti Unhale, India's longest-living heart transplant survivor | This image is AI-generated
In December 2023, a 51-year-old woman won a gold medal for badminton at India's first-ever Transplant Games. Away from the court, she spends her days counseling patients at AIIMS, encouraging them not to lose hope in the face of life-threatening illnesses. At first glance, there seems to be nothing extraordinary about her life. But that’s the very catch. For the last 25 years, Preeti Unhale has been living with the heart of a 14-year-old boy who lost his life in a road accident. While the boy's name remains unknown, his final gift gave Preeti a second chance at life. Today, she is India's longest-surviving heart transplant recipient.
Yet there was a time when even surviving another month seemed impossible. Twenty-five years ago, in November 2000, Preeti arrived at AIIMS Delhi in a wheelchair, exhausted, breathless, and standing at death's door. A native of Madhya Pradesh, she had been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a disease that weakens the heart muscle and makes it difficult for the organ to pump blood to the rest of the body. By the year 2000, her condition had deteriorated drastically. She suffered from chest pain, fatigue, and constant palpitations. Walking even a few steps had become difficult. Breathing was a struggle. Speaking for long periods exhausted her.
After being turned away by several health centres, she was finally admitted to AIIMS in November 2000 in a critical condition. There, she came under the care of renowned cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. P. Venugopal and cardiologist Dr. K. K. Talwar. But there was only one way to save her life—a heart transplant. At the time, heart transplantation was still a relatively rare procedure in India. Finding a suitable donor was perhaps the biggest challenge. As doctors searched desperately for a matching heart, time seemed to be running out for Preeti.
Then came the call that would change everything. On the night of January 3, 2001, doctors at AIIMS received information from Delhi's Apollo Hospital. A 14-year-old boy had been declared brain dead after suffering severe injuries in a road accident. Though devastated by their loss, his family agreed to donate his organs, offering hope to patients they would never meet.
The boy's heart was a match for Preeti. The response was immediate. While one medical team rushed to Apollo Hospital to retrieve the donor heart, another began preparing Preeti for surgery at AIIMS. Every minute mattered. On January 23, 2001, a team led by renowned cardiac surgeon Dr. Balram Airan successfully performed the complex transplant procedure. For Preeti, that day became her “second birthday”—the day she was given a new life.
However, the surgery was only the beginning. One of the greatest challenges after any organ transplant is rejection. Since the transplanted organ comes from another person's body, the recipient's immune system often attacks it as foreign. Such episodes can become life-threatening if not controlled in time. Preeti too faced multiple instances of rejection over the years.
Each episode brought uncertainty and fear, but she continued to fight. Supported by medication and closely monitored by AIIMS doctors, including Dr. Shiv Choudhary, Dr. Sandeep Seth, and Dr. Milind Hote, she overcame every setback that came her way. Globally, surviving five years after a heart transplant is considered a significant milestone. Yet Preeti crossed that mark, then another, and another. Today, she has completed twenty-five years with the same transplanted heart. Even more remarkably, she never required another heart transplant or major corrective surgery. Her body accepted the donor organ so successfully that her case is now regarded as one of the most remarkable success stories in the history of heart transplantation in India.
Yet what makes Preeti's journey truly extraordinary is not merely the number of years she has survived, but how she has chosen to live them. Today, she works with AIIMS' Organ Retrieval Banking Organization (ORBO), counseling patients who are battling the same fears and uncertainties she once faced. Having experienced the journey herself, she offers them something that medicine alone cannot provide—hope. Her determination extends beyond hospital corridors. In December 2023, she scripted history by winning a gold medal in badminton at India's first Transplant Games in Kerala, proving that organ recipients can lead active, fulfilling lives long after their surgeries.
Even after twenty-five years, she continues to remember the anonymous donor who made her second life possible. “I am always thankful to the family who made the decision to donate their son's heart when I had lost all hope of living again,” she says. The boy who donated his heart is no longer in this world. But through Preeti, a part of him continues to live on.
Her story is also a reflection of how far India has progressed in the field of organ transplantation. According to data from the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO), more than 1,400 heart transplants have been successfully performed in India since the country's first successful heart transplant at AIIMS in 1994. Today, between 90 and 150 heart transplants are conducted annually across the country.
Yet among all those success stories, Preeti Unhale's journey remains unique—a story of medical excellence, human resilience, and a selfless decision by one grieving family that transformed tragedy into twenty-five years of life.
