52-year-old Anuradha Kinnal, a lecturer at the Government PU College in Kalaburagi and 60-year-old Savitri from Bengaluru, who met in the lobby of a private hospital, have become thick friends. It is only incidental that they saved the lives of each other’s husband.
In a rare gesture, these women gave a fresh lease of life to each other’s husbands by participating in swap kidney donations. The swap surgeries were conducted at Columbia Asia Referral Hospital in Yeshwanthpur on June 24.
Suffering from chronic kidney disease, their husbands required kidney donation. Although the wives wanted to donate their organs, their blood groups did not match and this was when doctors suggested that they could swap their kidneys.
“My husband Bhimsain Joshi (62), a retired principal from Kalaburagi has been on dialysis since the last two years. Although I wanted to donate my organ, our blood groups were incompatible,” said Ms. Anuradha.
Savitri recalled that it was in April last year that doctors at the hospital introduced them to Venu Gopal, a 64-year-old businessman from rural Bengaluru, who had been on dialysis since the last 4 years. Venu Gopal was suffering from a similar situation where his blood group did not match with his wife’s for kidney transplant.
“That is when we were advised to consider swap kidney transplant by the doctors for which we readily agreed,” she said.
Ajit K. Huilgol, Chief Transplant Surgeon at the hospital, said it is important that both sets of transplants are done simultaneously in a swap transplant procedure. “This is because there is the danger of the second donor backing out from the procedure after the first transplant is over,” he said.
“The procedure was completed in four and half hours. We had two sets of teams, including anaesthetists, surgeons and supporting staff. Both the patients are doing fine now and can lead a normal life,” he said.
Sankaran Sundar, Chief Nephrologist at the hospital, said the swap transplants had been approved by the State Authorisation Committee.
“An unrelated kidney transplant is legal if cleared by the State Authorisation Committee. Clearance from this committee is vital for such transplants,” he added.
Another swap transplant soon
Doctors at Columbia Asia Hospital are preparing for another swap transplant procedure involving a brother-sister from Raichur and husband-wife from Himachal Pradesh. This would be the fourth swap transplant in Karnataka.
Sankaran Sundar, Chief Nephrologist at the hospital, said counselling plays a vital role in swap kidney transplants. “We find it difficult to convince patients when they come from different social status, caste, religion, etc,” he said.
