Call for policy on donation of organs
By George Kebaso, August 17, 2020George Kebaso @Morarak
Samuel Karoki marked World Organ Donation Day last Thursday wearing a happy face.
The day is observed on August 13 to spread awareness about the importance of organ donation.
Consequently, Karoki is appealing to Kenyan organ donation volunteers, especially kidneys, to do so in an effort to help ease the burden of kidney disease on patients. Dialysis, Karoki explains, is costly and traumatic.
Karoki has undertaken two kidney surgeries in a decade. At the end of last year, a kidney procedure he had undergone about 10 years ago started failing, he could not immediately establish or figure out the cause.
His condition deteriorated that he had to go for dialysis again. “Going back to dialysis was quite traumatic. Something I could not imagine,” he says.
Karoki reflects: “I did not have an option as I had to survive. So I went back to my family for another donation. One of my sisters volunteered her kidney.”
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Organ transplant is a phenomenon that many would term as a non-option. One that instills fear in donors and recipients but on the contrary, it has saved millions of lives.
At the expert level, kidney specialists want the government to fast track laws that will allow for organ harvesting from persons who have experienced fatal brain injuries, to a cabbage state.
According to Dr Srinivas Murthy, a kidney transplant specialist with the Mediheal Hospital based in Eldoret, the facility has been doing organ harvesting from people with fatal brain injuries.
He said Kenya should borrow a leaf from a number of countries, currently putting in place laws to guide the process.
“For instance we are encouraging the government to come up with guidelines on vital organ harvesting from victims of fatal accidents that kill the brain, but have other organs intact.
This after realising the importance of alternative kidney donation to live donations,” he said.
This will also help lessen the burden of dialysis on many patients suffering from one form of kidney disorder or the other, he noted.
Murthy, who has already done close to 100 kidney transplants in Kenya in the last two years said a number of measures have been put in place, and now a number of nephrologists (kidney specialists) in the country are running the programme.
“All major organs have been harvested and are being shared across the counties for the patients who are wait-listed,” he said.
Karoki, had showed up for tests and medicine prescription at the hospital. His kidney failure and transplant journey is just an eventful one.
“After my kidney failed I had to undergo dialysis. I was advised that to get my life back to almost normal I had to do a kidney transplant, otherwise I would be on dialysis for life,” he narrated.
It was after that revelation that it dawned on him that his life had now taken a drastic turn forcing him to adapt to a rather uncomfortable new normal, one that came with a range of shortcomings.
“After your kidneys fail in what the doctors term chronic kidney disease, they cannot come back and can not work either. One cannot urinate easily but rely on a dialysis machine,” he said.
After 6 months of financially draining and traumatising dialysis experience, finally relieve came to Karoki.
“I was very lucky my sister agreed to donate her kidney. We were fortunate because our kidneys marched.
I underwent a successful kidney transplant,” he added. And even after this successful process, challenges came knocking on his newly found state of life, one he says millions of patients go through but their outcry has always fallen on deaf ears.
“If I am suffering because I cannot afford my medication, I am elated and enjoying the healthcare that the government is offering.
No I am not, and it is happening to my other country people because healthcare is not about the equipment only, it is about the health of the population,” Karoki said.
Nine years later, the unbelievable happened, the kidney failed again even though his other sister donated hers to save him again. This time it was a tough decision.
“Doing a second kidney transplant is not easy, because chances of it failing are quite high, according to doctors because already your body has rejected one kidney, so it might also reject another one,” he said.
To his relief, however, Karoki survived his second transplant conducted at Mediheal Hospital.
Transplant costs Sh2 million. Dr Murthy said that organ harvesting could serve as a solution to the scarcity of organs for transplants.
“The idea that instead of destroying a perishing body let it be useful to somebody who is requiring it.
It is a simple rule of life. Human beings are also useful even after death,” he added.