Petro Zinych – a 30-year-old nurse from Bila Tserkva, has become the first person in Ukraine to survive a heart retransplantation
This operation marked the 120th successful heart transplant and the first retransplantation in our country.
Petro Zinych, a 30-year-old nurse from Bila Tserkva, is the first individual in Ukraine to undergo a heart retransplantation.
This was reported by the Heart Institute of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.
While working at a hemodialysis center, Petro Zinych cared for other patients daily, even though he constantly needed assistance himself.
When the heart transplanted in Minsk in 2016 began to fail, its function dropped to a critical 11 percent. Petro waited for a donor for two years, the last one and a half months under the constant supervision of doctors from the Heart Institute.
“I was probably the most anxious. Performing a heart retransplantation is technically very complicated. After seven years, the heart becomes encased in adhesions, and separating these growings is very dangerous,” said Boris Todurov, the director of the Heart Institute and a cardiac surgeon.
Twenty minutes without a heart, four hours of meticulous work – and the new organ began to function in the patient’s chest. His wife Victoria was by his side the entire time:
“These hours of waiting were incredibly difficult. I thank the doctors and the donor for giving Petro the chance to live on, to be with us and our children.”
Petro Zinych's heart could not withstand the pain of losing his beloved brother and the exhausting search for his body…
Petro's brother, Ihor Zinych, a military medic with the call sign "Psych," a Hero of Ukraine, was a true guardian angel for many "cyborgs" at the Donetsk airport. He saved dozens of lives, refusing to leave the DAP because there was no one to replace him. He was exceptionally brave. His fellow soldiers recounted how he managed to perform complex surgeries under enemy fire in the airport terminal. Ihor was 26.
Junior Sergeant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Ihor Zinych was killed on January 20, 2015, in the terminal of Donetsk airport.