Kidney Transplantation For Nigerian

Kalu Gift (second right) with K.G. Hospital Chairman G. Bakthavathsalam (right) and nephrologist R. Balasubramaniam (left) after the kidney transplantation. Kalu Gift feels as though she has been pulled back from the jaws of death. Recuperating after a kidney transplantation surgery at K.G. Hospital here, the 38-year-old woman from Nigeria says she almost died on May 19 at a hospital in Bangalore where she was undergoing dialysis.Hospital Chairman G. Bakthavathsalam and Chief Nephrologist R. Balasubramanian say it is destiny that guided Ms. Gift to Coimbatore. Ms. Gift’s husband, Mathew Kalu, an evangelist, narrates the ordeal his family had gone through ever since his wife was diagnosed with kidney failure at a hospital in Nigeria in November last year.

“We were a bit ignorant on kidney problems,” he said, to explain the shock that the family went through. “She was advised transplantation. The options were to go to Canada or the United States, where I had friends. But, the cost of the trip to either of these places and treatment was very high. So, we decided on dialysis in Nigeria itself,” he says.But, the experience in Nigeria during the dialysis for three months till January this year was “rough and unpalatable”, he says. And, each dialysis had cost them Rs.20,000. Dr. Balasubramanian says a dialysis costs only Rs.1,250 here.

The family had then realised that a solution lay in transplantation. A Nigerian nephrologist then advised them to travel to India. “After noticing that many Indian surgeons were involved in transplantation surgeries in Nigeria, we were also convinced of the medical expertise in India,” he says. Reaching a hospital in Bangalore had not ended the problems. Ms. Gift had been found to carry Hepatitis C virus. Hospitals do not perform transplantation if a patient is found to have the virus. In Ms. Gift’s case, this had to be treated first. “She may have got it in Nigeria where she had many blood transfusions,” explains Dr. Balasubramanian. So, the dialysis had continued in Bangalore also.

“For us, it was a tight-rope walk. We had to ensure that the immune suppressants that we gave to the patient to prevent the rejection of a transplanted kidney did not enable the Hepatitis C virus to gain an upper hand,” he says.Ms. Gift’s 28-year-old bachelor brother, James Lawrence, accompanied the couple as the kidney donor. But, the couple had reached the edge of despair in May and planned to return to Nigeria, after spending Rs.9 lakh in three months in Bangalore.

But, they contacted a pastor in Udhagamandalam. He, in turn, spoke to a physician at Sulur, near here. Based on the doctor’s opinion, the couple came to K.G. Hospital on May 24.Mr. Lawrence’s kidney was transplanted in her sister on July 7. “I feel strong now and I want to be back with my children,” she says. Her husband says: “We came to India, not knowing anyone. But, we seem to have got friends and a family here in Coimbatore. I did not learn even one word in Kannada while in Bangalore. But, I can now say vanakkam in Tamil. And, I am going back with an image of India as a country of very friendly and caring people, quite contrary to what I had been told earlier.”

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