First-ever Kidney Transplant in Belize Planned
Turning to health news, it is a surgery that has saved countless lives over the world for people whose kidneys have stopped functioning. Now kidney transplants will be available to patients right here in Belize, with the first ever life-saving procedure to be performed at the national referral hospital, the Karl Heusner Memorial. News Five’s Marion Ali sat down with the urological surgeon, Dr. Byron Simmons, who wants to start a viable, sustainable kidney transplant program at the hospital.
Marion Ali, Reporting
He has studied the functions of the liver and kidneys and says he has performed countless kidney transplants abroad. Now, urologist Dr. Byron Simmons says he is ready to start transplanting kidneys in patients in Belize. He says the KHMH has the infrastructural capacity to give patients suffering from renal failure an alternative to the very expensive hemodialysis treatment.
Dr. Byron Simmons
Dr. Byron Simmons, Urological surgeon
“One, it’s cheaper than dialysis. It’s definitely cheaper. That has been proven over time. Two, kidney transplants offer longer life than dialysis. The average life span – obviously you have different persons that have different survival rate – but the average life span on dialysis is five years. While if you were to transplant a kidney from a living donor, the expectancy of that kidney, not the person but the kidney, is between twelve and twenty years. And moreover, the quality of life is exponentially better on transplant than on dialysis because patients on dialysis are basically condemned to come three times a week to receive dialysis. Their general health deteriorates considerably, while a person that has been transplanted basically goes back to life and lives normally.”
The same applies to pregnant women and children who have received kidney transplants versus those who have been on dialysis. Currently there are one hundred and twenty patients whose dialysis treatment is subsidized by the government and hundreds more waiting to get on the list. And for patients, who have serious doubts about going under the knife, Simmons says that just like with most surgeries, there will be an element of risk, but kidney transplants are generally straightforward with a high success rate.
Dr. Byron Simmons
“It would basically require two sets of surgical teams. One team that would do what we call the donor nephrectomy, or in other words, would remove the kidney from the person that’s donating the kidney and simultaneously in an operating room next door, you’d have the implant or the receptor surgery whereby the second team, led by myself, would be preparing the patient, already advancing the surgery, whereby when the kidney is removed from the donor, we immediately receive it, prepare it, put it in a special preservative – in this case it’s called custodiol and prepare the kidney and immediately after, in a matter of minutes, we start to implant onto the receptor. And amazingly enough, with patients that have not produced urine for the last years, immediately as we implant the kidney it starts producing urine.”
Marion Ali
“So if you need a kidney, who can be your donor?”
Dr. Byron Simmons
“They have to be compatible and compatibility can be determined by siblings, parents family members, uncles so forth, those are the more compatible. But anybody can be compatible – there is a possibility to be compatible once they have the same blood type. But very importantly, we can never compromise the donor’s wellbeing by taking a kidney. So suppose the donor is diabetic, hypertensive or has a kidney disease whereby they themselves might in the future have some renal problem, then we don’t take kidney.”
For potential future kidney donors whose concern might be how much your own health would become compromised if you donate one of your kidneys, Simmons says that is hardly ever a factor, based on his external experience.
Dr. Byron Simmons
“Donors tend to live longer than the population in general because once they donate, then the medical system has a commitment to the donor whereby we follow them closely. So we make sure their cholesterol is always controlled, their sugar, their blood pressure, etcetera, while by and large, the majority of us in the population, we don’t even bother about doing regular check-ups. They end up living a normal and natural life span, independent of one kidney.”
The first patient scheduled to receive a kidney in March is an eighteen year-old female. Her donor is her mother. Both have undergone all the necessary tests and have been cleared for the surgery. What has caused a delay in the procedure being performed before is the high number of COVID hospitalizations that have forced every other aspect of healthcare onto the back burner. Now, that the COVID numbers are once again on the decline, Simmons says he is looking forward to getting the procedure done as planned.
Marion Ali reporting for News Five.
Dr. Simmons says there are plans to propose to insurance companies to add this procedure to their coverage schemes.
