JUST IN: Mulago conducts first kidney transplant

A team of medical experts from Uganda and India performed a kidney transplant at Mulago Hospital on Wednesday, the first in the country, sources have revealed.

 

Mulago hospital building.

 By our reporter.

The surgery to place a healthy kidney from a donor into a 24-year-old male whose kidneys no longer functioned, was done at the newly established organ transplant unit at the national re- ferral hospital. Sources familiar with the four-hour operation said it was deemed a success and both patients were stable after the operations.

Asked for comment on Thursday, Dr Rosemary Byanyima, the acting executive director of the Hospital said: “We have been planning, planning, we will let you know when we have done it.”

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 Sources told this  website that Prof Frank Asiimwe, a consultant urologist and transplant surgeon at the hospital, led the team of Ugandan surgeons and other specialised medical professionals.

They were assisted by a team of specialist doctors from Yashoda Hospitals in India where Ugandan doctors received intensive training earlier to do organ transplants.

They were among 15 specialists including urologists, nephrologists and nurses trained in aspects of kidney transplant in India following an agreement between Mulago and Yashoda in 2014.

The takeoff for the actual transplant was delayed with the doctors at Mulago Hospital blaming it on lack of equipment and legal framework to start the life-saving surgeries.

However, the renovation works at the facility, purchase of modern equipment to establish world-class organ transplant unit, and the enactment of the Uganda Human Organ Donation and Transplant law this year,paved way for kidney transplant to begin in the country.

Under the new law, unlawfully selling an organ from your body and paying for one have the same penalty as that of human organ trafficking, which is life imprisonment. The law also prescribes which facilities should do kidney transplant,who should do kidney transplant, and who shall ensure transparency and accountability.

“A person shall not remove any human organ,tissue or cell from any living person who doesn’t have the capacity to give valid consent in accordance with this Act and any other applicable law,” provisions in the law read.

“A person who transplants an organ, tissue or cells from a living donor with- out prior authorisation of the Council commits an offence and is liable,on conviction, to a fine not exceeding 150,000 currency points (Shs3 billion) or imprisonment not exceeding twelve years, or both,”the provisions in the law read further.

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