Kenyan medics set to roll out organ transplant donation programme

The National Tissue and Organ Transplant Technical Committee (KTTTAC) is coming up with rules and policies that will permit Kenya’s organ donation programme. 

The team hopes to have the draft of the Bill ready by December this year, and they are asking legislators to support the initiative which will direct the procedure and broaden the potential sources of donor organs, including the harvesting of organs from deceased patients in order to save the lives of patients whose organs have failed. 

Acting KTTA director Dr. Nduku Kilonzo stated that the nation is experiencing a kidney donor shortage, which is causing many Kenyans to lose their lives and some to incur significant weekly medical expenses due to receiving dialysis. This was made during a four-day Kenya Renal Association (KRA) conference in Mombasa. 

“We have to find a way of getting kidneys and other organs from people who have died. To do that we must have regulations. Kenyans must understand why we must do that, there are legal issues on who determines death, who does the transplant and who gets the organs once it’s done,” observed Kilonzo.  

The recurring reliance on family contribution procedures, which have proven to be unreliable, will be abandoned by initiating the changes. 

According to Dr. John Ngigi, the president of the Kenya Renal Association, organ allocation criteria are based on a first-come, first-served basis.  

He claims that regulations regarding the capabilities of the various hospitals participating in transplants are necessary to ensure competency during certification.  

“It’s a very nice proposal, it’s an innovative proposal that’s where Kenya should be, indeed the World Health Organization is advocating for improvement in donation practices and one of the practices the country should embrace is a disease donation programme, because any country should be having sustainability in the way we offer services,” Ngigi claimed.  

With the family’s permission, the specialists will target individuals who may have passed away in an accident or who had their life support recently removed in a hospital. 

The regulations for the organ donation program will focus on standards, illegal organ harvesting, and conflicts of interest. 

Ngigi claims there is a kidney donor scarcity in the country, which is caused by underlying causes like health issues, blood group mismatches, and diseases that run-in families 10-years after aggressive kidney transplantation first began in Kenya.  

 “We did not foresee a situation where we will have problem of donors, because we are having fewer donors, and many of our donors are unhealthy, diseases that are running in families and also blood group, so we need to get another pool of donors and that pool is for people who are not alive,” stated Ngigi.  

Currently, the cost of dialysis sessions and other infections is Sh76,000 per month. If patients receive a successful kidney transplant soon after the draft is implemented, the cost of medical services will drop to Sh42,000 per month.  

However, by the time the article was published, attempts by The Informer to reach out to Kilonzo proved futile.