Canadian Baby Gets New Heart at Loma Linda

A 2 1/2-month-old Canadian girl received a transplanted heart in a five-hour operation at Loma Linda University Medical Center on Saturday, the ninth baby to undergo such surgery at the facility.

Baby Jessica, from Calgary, Canada, was in critical but stable condition after the operation by Dr. Leonard Bailey, who performed the eight previous transplants and also transplanted the heart of a baboon into an infant in 1984. Four of the infants have died.

Hospital spokeswoman Anita Rockwell said Jessica suffered from a severely malformed heart complicated by failure of the left side structures.

“The transplant team is pleased with the early results,” she said, noting that it was normal for a heart transplant recipient to be in critical condition after the extensive operation.

The transplant operation by Bailey, chief of pediatric cardiac surgery at Loma Linda, began at 10 a.m. and ended about 3 p.m., Rockwell said.

The child’s parents are Greig, 26, a truck driver, and Brenda, 23, a homemaker, she said. She declined to identify them further.

Bailey captured national attention in 1984 when he transplanted the heart of a baboon into an ailing Baby Fae, who was born with a malfunctioning left side of the heart, a condition known as hypoplastic left heart syndrome. She died 21 days after the operation because of a mismatch between her blood and that of the baboon.