DOHA: The wife of an Indian expatriate donated her kidney to her husband in a successful transplant operation conducted recently at Hamad General Hospital.
The patient, 50-year-old Abraham Thomas has been diabetic for 22 years and has been under the care of Dr Muhammad Asim, Nephrology Consultant at HMC, for the past eight years. Thomas had been referred from the Diabetes Clinic when laboratory tests showed that his kidneys had quite advanced dysfunction.
“Kidneys have a large reserve of function and therefore many people do not have symptoms until extensive kidney damage has occurred. The kidneys become progressively weak with time, though the treatment provided slows down the deterioration,” he said.
Two-and-a-half years ago, the patient began receiving peritoneal dialysis treatment at HMC. Thomas’ wife, Aleyamma Thomas, is a staff nurse at HMC, and she and her husband were aware that spousal kidney transplant was an option as they had compatible blood groups, said Asim.
The couple also thanked HMC for the excellent care that they were given, and said that after this event, their children are also considering becoming organ donors. All the expenses for the patient’s dialysis, investigative work-up, transplant surgery, medications after the surgery and follow-up clinic visits were shouldered by HMC.
The operation was performed using laparoscopy by the transplant team composed of Dr Al Maslamani, Dr Riadh Fadhil, Dr Abdulla Al Ansari, Dr Henrik Gjertsen, Dr Mohammed El Masry, Dr Hassan Al Thani, Dr Omar Isam and Dr Abdel Kader Al Obeidy. The Peninsula
