The first beneficiary of a new binational organ donation agreement between Israel and Cyprus appeared to be doing well after undergoing a 21/2-hour heart transplant operation last Friday.
By Sunday morning, Avi Britstein, a 46-year-old engineer from Ramat Gan, was off respiratory-assist machines, breathing on his own and chatting with his family.
He spoke to reporters in a firm and confident voice from his bed at the Sheba government hospital in Tel Hashomer.
The operation marked the first time a foreigner’s heart had been brought to Israel for transplant. Two livers were imported some time ago, but the woman who received both died some years ago.
Britstein, who suffers from cardiac muscle atrophy, said he first learned last Thursday night that a heart was en route from Cyprus and that he would be operated on within hours.
Dr. Ya’acov Lavi, head of the Sheba transplant team, received word at 6 p.m. Thursday that the heart of a brain-dead 42-year-old Cypriot woman was available in Limassol.
“Within three hours, we had organized a twin-engine plane to fly our team over. By 9 p.m. we were already on our way,” he said.
An ambulance was awaiting them on the runway at the Nicosia airport and the Israeli doctor and nurses were rushed to the hospital at Limassol under police escort.
The Israeli team, with the assistance of Cypriot surgeons, removed the heart, placed it in a portable refrigerator and flew back to Israel, where Britstein had already been prepared to receive the transplant.
Lavi, who brought the heart from Ben-Gurion Airport to Tel Hashomer, performed the transplant procedure.
Cyprus agreed to joint surgical procedures in which hearts will be transplanted at Sheba Hospital, and livers and other organs will be jointly transplanted into Israelis in Cyprus, said the Israeli hospital’s deputy director-general, Dr. Ze’ev Rothstein.
Cypriot patients in need of heart transplants not available on Cyprus may now register with Sheba, through the Nicosia organ transplant center, for inclusion in the Israeli hospital’s heart-transplant waiting list.
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