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Dubai set for first kidney transplant by March

Doctors at the Dubai Hospital’s Kidney Transplantation Clinic said several patients on the waiting list were in dire need of a kidney.

Giving hope to hundreds of patients on dialysis, Dubai will be ready for its first kidney transplant by March.

Though the first patient has not been shortlisted for the transplant as of yet, doctors at the Dubai Hospital’s Kidney Transplantation Clinic said several patients, including children, on the waiting list were in dire need of a kidney.

“It is the availability and selection of the donor that is a challenge,” explained Dr Farhad Kheradmand Aljanahi, Specialist Urologist and Transplant Surgeon at the hospital.

“We have parents who want to give a kidney to their children, wives’ to husbands … but we have to be careful in selecting a donor,” he said.

“We cannot take organs from people who are unwell or maybe under any kind of pressure,” explained the doctor. “Selection is very important since a donor needs to be healthy enough to survive on a single kidney,” he added.

At present, nearly 300 patients, Emiratis and expatriates, are undergoing regular dialysis at Dubai Hospital.

“Once kidneys fail, a person would need regular dialysis to remove the toxic waste from the body. For most patients it is done as regularly as three to four times a week for four to five hours at one stretch,” explained Dr Aljanahi.

“But a patient cannot live on dialysis forever.”

Initially the clinic, that runs every Monday afternoon, will allow only first or second-degree relatives to donate and will later include organs from cadavers or brain dead patients willing to donate. Dr Aljanahi said the clinic was established in December last year as part of a pilot study to assess the establishment of a fully functional centre in the future.

“We will have visiting doctors from Ireland who will carry out the transplants along with a team from Dubai,” he said.

“Dubai Hospital’s Renal and Urology Disease departments has seen a steep rise in the number of patients with kidney diseases,” said Dr Abdulrazzak Al Madani, CEO of the hospital.

“While we provide dialysis service to hundreds of patients and the numbers are on the rise, we realised there is a need for introducing kidney transplant services so that patients do not need to travel abroad for this service.”

“By providing this service locally, we will be able to reduce the time these patients spend in hospitals for dialysis, improve their work and exercise capacity, and overall health and life expectancy, so that they lead a normal life and resume their fulltime employments,” said Dr Madani. According to the doctors, increasing incidents of hypertension and diabetes was contributing majorly to a rise in kidney disease.

“A large percentage of our patients develop chronic kidney disease as a secondary complication of diabetes and/or high blood pressure, which are both becoming increasingly prevalent in our region,” said Dr Aljanahi.

“Many of them gradually proceed to end-stage kidney disease and kidney transplantation offers them a better life both in the short and long term as opposed to treatment with continuous dialysis.”

In the UAE, a kidney transplant costs Dh100,000 to Dh150,000. After the procedure, patients are put on immunosuppressive drugs to prevent rejection.

The surgeries will be performed in collaboration with a Specialist Transplant Team from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and the Beaumont Hospital, Dublin.

Shaikh Khalifa Medical City (SKMC) in Abu Dhabi has already carried out nearly 80 kidney transplants since 2008. -asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com