A chain of faith, a gift of life - Canada
The Province | Elaine OConnor
Revolutionary organ exchange program can involve a domino chain of up to 10 people across Canada, and it drastically reduces wait times for transplant recipients
Photo: Medical staff keep a close eye on the time while working on a removed kidney, bottom left, during a transplant operation at St. Paul’s Hospital. Photograph by: Arlen Redekop , PROVINCE
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Jacqueline Nemeth was born with two kidneys, but today she has four â€" and she has no idea who the other two came from.
What she does know is that organ donations from two complete strangers have saved her life, twice. And that a national program, the Living Donor Paired Exchange, is making these anonymous gifts possible for others like her.
“It’s really opened up opportunities for recipients to search through all of Canada,†Nemeth said, sitting in St. Paul’s hospital with her husband Joe just six weeks after her second transplant.
“It is a leap of faith,†she said, “but it’s giving people who are hard to match ... a way to receive a kidney.â€
The 46-year-old Langley mother of four suffered kidney failure at age 17 growing up in Calgary.
She was on peritoneal dialysis for three years before a kidney came through from a deceased donor. The donor’s selfless decision granted her more than 20 years of relative good health. But the organ began to wear out in January 2011 and St. Paul’s nephrologist and head of B.C.’s kidney transplant program Dr. David Landsberg recommended a transplant.
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{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
Revolutionary organ exchange program can involve a domino chain of up to 10 people across Canada, and it drastically reduces wait times for transplant recipients
Photo: Medical staff keep a close eye on the time while working on a removed kidney, bottom left, during a transplant operation at St. Paul’s Hospital. Photograph by: Arlen Redekop , PROVINCE
Your thoughts?
Jacqueline Nemeth was born with two kidneys, but today she has four â€" and she has no idea who the other two came from.
What she does know is that organ donations from two complete strangers have saved her life, twice. And that a national program, the Living Donor Paired Exchange, is making these anonymous gifts possible for others like her.
“It’s really opened up opportunities for recipients to search through all of Canada,†Nemeth said, sitting in St. Paul’s hospital with her husband Joe just six weeks after her second transplant.
“It is a leap of faith,†she said, “but it’s giving people who are hard to match ... a way to receive a kidney.â€
The 46-year-old Langley mother of four suffered kidney failure at age 17 growing up in Calgary.
She was on peritoneal dialysis for three years before a kidney came through from a deceased donor. The donor’s selfless decision granted her more than 20 years of relative good health. But the organ began to wear out in January 2011 and St. Paul’s nephrologist and head of B.C.’s kidney transplant program Dr. David Landsberg recommended a transplant.
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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