UC San Francisco performs kidney transplant for illegal immigrant after thousands support his cause
San Jose Mercury News| Julia Prodis Sulik
Undocumented immigrant recuperates after a kidney transplant
Kidney recipient Jesus Navarro wears a dusk mask as he sports a cap with the USA letters at theIr home in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 4, 2012. (Ray Chavez/Staff)
OAKLAND -- Seven years of waiting are over for Jesus Navarro, an illegal immigrant who finally received a new kidney after his story motivated one man plus thousands of others to fight on his behalf for a transplant.
Navarro, 36, was recuperating at his small Oakland apartment Thursday with his wife and daughter after the successful transplant last week at UC San Francisco Medical Center. The hospital became embroiled in controversy nine months ago after Navarro came to believe -- despite having private health insurance, despite his wife's pledge to donate her own kidney -- that his immigration status doomed his chances of a transplant.
"I'm hoping to be feeling well enough to do all the things I wanted to do but couldn't," Navarro said in Spanish Thursday, after receiving a kidney from an organ donor. More than anything, it means finally being an active, engaged husband to his wife, Angelica, and a doting father to their 3-year-old daughter, Karen.
Until he lost his job in January, Navarro would spend 12 hours every afternoon and night tethered to a dialysis machine then wake before dawn to leave for his job as a welder at Pacific Steel in Berkeley.
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{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
Undocumented immigrant recuperates after a kidney transplant
Kidney recipient Jesus Navarro wears a dusk mask as he sports a cap with the USA letters at theIr home in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 4, 2012. (Ray Chavez/Staff)
OAKLAND -- Seven years of waiting are over for Jesus Navarro, an illegal immigrant who finally received a new kidney after his story motivated one man plus thousands of others to fight on his behalf for a transplant.
Navarro, 36, was recuperating at his small Oakland apartment Thursday with his wife and daughter after the successful transplant last week at UC San Francisco Medical Center. The hospital became embroiled in controversy nine months ago after Navarro came to believe -- despite having private health insurance, despite his wife's pledge to donate her own kidney -- that his immigration status doomed his chances of a transplant.
"I'm hoping to be feeling well enough to do all the things I wanted to do but couldn't," Navarro said in Spanish Thursday, after receiving a kidney from an organ donor. More than anything, it means finally being an active, engaged husband to his wife, Angelica, and a doting father to their 3-year-old daughter, Karen.
Until he lost his job in January, Navarro would spend 12 hours every afternoon and night tethered to a dialysis machine then wake before dawn to leave for his job as a welder at Pacific Steel in Berkeley.
Read more
{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
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