Living Kidney Donation

Posts Tagged ‘living kidney donor’

I recently appeared on the Tonight programme “kindness of strangers” and later  on the BBC World News along with Dr. J. Lowney from matchingdonors.com to have a discussion on their organisation which was coming to the UK.

I contacted them to see if they would answer some questions that I and others had regarding their organisation and the role it had here in the UK.  They readily agreed to answer any questions I had but unfortunately, 5 week later they are still not answering any, regardless of repeated  requests.    Here is the (lengthy) list of questions I have put to them.  Anyone considering joining the organisation either as a donor or patient may want to read these first before making a decision.  If matching donors responds to any questions I will publish them alongside the relevant question.

QUESTIONS:

The system

Paul Dooley is quoted as saying “The old system of ‘Give us your organ, we’ll decide where it goes’ no longer works. We have the ability to take our system to the UK and save their lives.”

Since the first non-directed altruistic donor was approved in 2007, the HTA have approved in total 160 donors 33 of which were approved in the first half of this year. There are also many potential donors being worked up at the moment with 30 at one transplant unit alone.

1.        Given that the altruistic donation system is very new in the UK, that the numbers of altruistic donors in the UK is increasingly very rapidly year-on-year, and also bearing in mind that the UK population, and thus the pool of potential donors, is a small fraction of that of the USA, on what basis can Paul Dooley justify his statement that our system is no longer working?

2.       Has matchingdonors.com had any legal challenges?

3.       Do all American transplant centres accept directed altruistic donors?

Patients

4.       Does your organisation inform transplant units that one of its transplant waiting list patients is registered with you?

To read more of the questions click this link
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I was challenged recently to try to explain what drives me to donating to a stranger and what is in it for me. If I were paid a large sum of money, then that could be understood as to the motives behind this. But with no apparent benefit – then why do it? Very good question and not always easy to answer.

Why do people decide to sail around the world or climb the highest mountains in the most atrocious of conditions? They are hailed as Explorers and record breakers and daring and brave! Who have they benefited by doing those things? Don’t get me wrong, they are courageous and brave and have pushed the boundaries of what the body can endure to the limit and beyond and I have great admiration for them. Why then when we decide to help someone lead a better life, we are often viewed as … crazy!

Why do we do anything though? Emotions drive us either to do something or not do something. Emotions that just seem to spring from nowhere.

Sometimes the drive inside us is so strong we just can’t ignore it. I had such  a desire inside me to offer one of my kidneys to someone who needed one. That desire just grew over time. I knew it was something I really wanted to do. Having said that, I did not go into this blindly. Even though my heart kept telling me this was something I wanted to do, reality also told me to investigate this, really look into it and then decide whether heart or head wins! I found nothing to dissuade me from doing this … so my heart won.

What do I get out of donating? I do agree that whenever we give, we do also receive, whether it is a great sense of satisfaction or disappointment should something go wrong.
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10th May

Great news. Got a letter from the Consultant Nephrologist advising that I am fit to proceed to further evaluation although I should lose some weight and come off HRT before being a donor.  The former I am working on! The latter will be fine over the short term and who knows maybe wont need to go back on it.  He is still waiting the results of other blood tests but they should present no problems.