In Ukraine, patients in need of a heart transplant may wait for a donor organ for months or even years. At the same time, as practice shows, a suitable donor is sometimes found unexpectedly quickly — and then transplant surgeons have no time to deliberate. In an interview with RBC-Ukraine, cardiologist-transplantologist Serhiy Mokhnatyi of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine's Center of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery spoke about the fates of patients who have gone through years of treatment, midnight calls about a donor, and operations that cannot be refused.

The patient doctors "had stopped hoping to operate on"

One of the most telling stories Mokhnatyi shared was the fate of a patient who had been under treatment for 11 years due to a severe heart condition. The doctors took into account his congenital defect, anatomical features, several prior operations, and episodes of cardiac arrest. "Given his defect, anatomical features, multiple operations, and several episodes of cardiac arrest, we had already stopped hoping we would be able to operate on him," the cardiac surgeon admitted. Nevertheless, the patient was placed on the transplant waiting list, and about a month after being added to the list, he was called in the middle of the night: a donor had appeared who was an ideal match on all parameters. The transplant was performed on an emergency basis, and the operation was successful.

Two transplants in three days: when the waiting list "collapses"

The same period was particularly intense for the center's team. On Monday, the medical staff performed a transplant on an adult patient, and the very next night they received information about a pediatric donor. "On Wednesday we carried out this transplant as well. Two transplants in three days. But that happens quite rarely. Patients can sometimes wait for years," Mokhnatyi emphasized. According to him, for the surgical and anesthesiology team, each such operation is a huge emotional and physical test, yet refusing the chance to save a life is impossible: "First you realize the full complexity, and then you understand that there are no other options: if you refuse, who knows when the next chance will come."

When the donor never comes: the story of a girl on ECMO

Not every story ends successfully. Mokhnatyi told of a girl who had been on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine for a long time while waiting for a donor heart, but never received one. "Unfortunately, it happens that patients do not wait long enough for an organ," the doctor noted. He added that heart transplants in children are performed quite rarely: according to the figures he cited, 22 such operations had been performed in Ukraine at the time of the interview. For comparison, last year the medical staff of Okhmatdet for the first time transplanted the organs of a four-year-old girl who had been declared brain dead, thereby saving the lives of three children — but these are isolated precedents, not a systematic practice.

Life after transplantation: lifelong medication and a gradual return to physical activity

After a heart transplant, patients gradually return to a more active life. In the first days, doctors closely monitor their condition and prescribe drugs to suppress the immune system to prevent rejection of the donor organ. These must be taken for life. "By days 6–7 we can already see the picture fairly clearly. By then patients can move around more. They see that the load they could not manage before the operation now comes more easily day by day," Mokhnatyi explained. During this period, patients are moved to a general ward: they remain isolated from other patients but can be near their relatives, walk more, and gradually return to their usual rhythm. According to the transplantologist, people with transplanted hearts usually live a full 10 years, and often much longer.

Contradictory data

No significant contradictions between the parties' versions were found in the provided materials. The only nuance: Mokhnatyi states that 22 heart transplants have been performed in children in Ukraine, without specifying the time frame of the count (over the entire period or over a specific period). At the same time, it is mentioned that children can wait for an organ "for years," which indirectly confirms the extremely low frequency of such operations. Exact statistics on pediatric heart transplants in Ukraine for 2026 are not available in the public domain, so the figure "22" is cited as data at the time of the interview, without the possibility of independent verification against current state registers.