Norton Children’s Hospital performs their 100th heart transplant

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – A milestone 40 years in the making helps a child who’s been waiting for a life-saving procedure.

The Norton Children’s Heart Institute performed their 100th pediatric heart transplant on Monday.

The 9-year-old patient has been on the waiting list for close to a year, and is currently recovering.

Norton is the only pediatric program in the state of Kentucky that is capable of doing heart transplants, and they are among the top 50 programs in the country.

One doctor explains what it means to provide a service that isn’t available anywhere else in the Commonwealth.

“It is very important to be able to provide that locally. We are the only program in the state that is capable of doing that and we are doing that with outcomes that match those of the best programs in the United States,” Dr. Bahaaldin Alsoufi says.

He says it’s also an extra bonus to be able to give a transplant to patients like this 9-year-old who have been waiting for a long time due to the emotional connection the staff has with these kinds of patients.