Urgent call for SA to become organ donors

More than 100 patients were on dialysis at the Tygerberg hospital, Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo said on Monday. Picture: Western Cape Health Department/Twitter

More than 100 patients were on dialysis at the Tygerberg hospital, Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo said on Monday. Picture: Western Cape Health Department/Twitter

Published Sep 3, 2019

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Cape Town - More than 100 patients were on dialysis at the Tygerberg hospital, Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo said on Monday.

While encouraging people to become organ and particularly kidney donors, Mbombo said there were many patients who died without access to dialysis due to limited resources.

She said organ donation was still taboo in many African communities, “we need to educate our communities about the importance of donating their organs once they pass on”.

“Less than 300 (organ) transplants are performed annually. Most people who die of natural deaths are potential organ donors,” she said.

“The reality is that organ donation is a simple choice that will cost you few minutes of your time in registering but it saves lives.”

She said a single organ donor may save up to eight people and a single tissue donor may enhance the lives of up to 50 people.

In April, two Port Elizabeth patients had to be flown to Cape Town to undergo transplant surgery as donor kidneys had to be transplanted within a certain time after becoming available.

Mercia Heilbron, who was Cally Williams’s primary caregiver, said Williams, was reliant on dialysis after suffering kidney failure.

“She was on the waiting list for a donor kidney since 2013, and when that telephone call finally came we were overcome with emotion this was nothing short of a miracle.”

According to Alexia Michaelides, one of Netcare’s transplant co-ordinators, there were around 4 000 individuals on the waiting list for donor organs in SA, and more than 2 000 awaiting kidney transplants.

“With the shortage of organ donors in SA, the chances of all those people requiring kidney transplants being matched with suitable donor organs, while they are still well enough to benefit from a transplant, is fairly slim”.

@SISONKE_MD

[email protected]

Cape Argus

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