Donating kidney for good cause

Dar es Salaam. Sacrificing for someone without expecting anything in return is, perhaps most challenging and a measure of success in the art of giving. But realities about true sacrifice are still controversial.

Leaving controversy aside, there are those who believe sacrifice should no longer be an issue of mere debate, and, one of them is Mr Elias Kalambo, a 40-year-old man from Kigoma who sacrificed one of his kidneys to a sick relative.

To him “giving sacrifice should be an opportunity to teach others that they can do anything in the name of saving the lives of others”.

Two years ago, Mr Kalambo says was a turning point in his life as he made the bold decision of donating one of his two organs. When he resolved to do so, his wife was at first opposed to his mission but doctors assured her of his safety and she dropped the objection.

“I felt I was going to count myself among the people who will have saved a life here on earth,” he said with a sense of pity, remembering how his 50 year old uncle, now a healthy and active man, battled with a kidney failure for about two years.

Saving uncle’s life

When The Citizen on Sunday caught up with him at his shop in the city’s major business centre, Mr Kalambo gave a detailed account of the story behind his decision to save his uncle’s life by offering him a kidney.

The soft-spoken man recalled how his uncle had to endure the pain of undergoing blood purification by dialysis machines three times a week at Regency Hospital in Dar es Salaam.

He further narrated how he couldn’t help the bad feeling that used to strike him when he noted how the patient was shouldering the financial burden of parting with a weekly Sh1 million for the treatment.

‘’Doctors told us that the only way my uncle could survive was to get someone to donate a kidney for him. I really felt I should get him out of that pain,’’ he recalled.

Contrary to what the experts say, many people, at least those who spoke to The Citizen on Sunday, believe that donating a kidney would put them at risk of suffering from kidney disease too.

But medical sources are proving these beliefs wrong. Researchers have proven that kidney diseases are complications of long standing high blood pressure and diabetes but not the lack of a single kidney.

Unlike the case with most other organs that people are born with, medical research further reveals that kidneys have been created with an over-abundant--or over- engineered--kidney capacity. A single kidney with only 75 per cent of its functional capacity can sustain life very well.

Evidence strongly suggests that living kidney donors are highly unlikely to develop significant long-term detrimental effects to their health, as illustrated by donors whose kidney function has been assessed for up to 30 years following donation.

In fact if one functional kidney is missing from birth, the other kidney can grow to reach a size similar to the combined weight of two kidneys.

Despite the huge scientific proof that assures every potential donor of the safety in offering a kidney, Mr Kalambo still told this paper that he was in a position to help to save life.

‘’I did it out of compassion and I have never regretted doing so,’’ he remarked, as he downplayed widespread fears in the society that donating a kidney leads to disability.

‘’Look at me today. I am not living under doctors’ instructions, as many would expect. I have all my dreams still on.

Many young men fear that donating a kidney cuts their dreams short. That’s a wrong thinking; ask the doctors, they will tell you,’’ he explained.

‘’What I learnt later as I underwent checkups for my fitness at various hospitals in Dar es Salaam, is that many potential kidney donors rely on hearsay to decide on whether to help their sick relatives or not,’’ he narrated further.

His testimony was also backed by the chairman of the Tanzania Kidney Patients’ Foundation, Mr Peter Cannington, who recently told The Citizen on Sunday in Dar es Salaam that cases of people running away from relatives who desperately need kidney transplant are common.

“The biggest challenge is that awareness among the public on kidney disease is still low. Potential kidney donors don’t know much about the disease. That’s why some tend to run away,’’ he said.

Dr Garvin Kweka from the Kidney Unit at Muhimbili National Hospital also concurred, but, he went further to explain that there are a lot of ethical issues related to donating a kidney, which the society ought to know well.

Kidney transplantation policy

According to the current Tanzanian policy, he said, a patient who is to undergo kidney transplantation is compelled to seek the organ from a living person who should strictly be related to him or her.

“To have someone, even a relative, accepting to donate a kidney requires a lot of counselling from appropriate medical experts. This sort of counselling makes a potential donor to make an informed decision on donating the organ or not,’’ said Dr Kweka. The success story of Mr Kalambo is an eye-opener to the realities surrounding kidney donation in Tanzania and the challenges that the country’s health care system faces in dealing with the rising trend of non-communicable diseases such as chronic kidney diseases.

Mr Kalambo has a lot to tell of his experience in Chennai India Madran Hospital where his uncle had been referred to for kidney transplantation by the Tanzanian Health ministry. He recalls the kind of sophisticated hospital equipment that were used during the surgery — a rare sight in the Tanzanian hospital experience.

On this year’s World Kidney Day in Arusha, Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda told thousands of people that Tanzania would start performing kidney transplantation at major referral hospitals by 2020 — citing the ongoing efforts to train local experts as one major step.