Living kidney donors and experts headline Health Awareness Day event
An audience of over 90 people were moved to tears during a panel discussion around living kidney donation during the recently hosted Health Awareness Day, which took place on 16th April 2022.
Among the pharmacy, dental and mental and emotional wellbeing stands, which welcomed over a hundred people to better understand how to maintain their health and prevent future illnesses, was a special hour-long panel discussion, hosted by Dr Manvir Kaur Hayer, Chair of the Nishkam Healthcare Trust and Kidney Specialist Consultant, focussing on the Living Kidney Donation campaign. A mixture of kidney specialists and kidney donors were in attendance, such as Surinder Jandu (Renal Transplant Coordinator, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham) as well a group of people with lived experience of kidney donation.
Anju Kaur, who suffered with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) as a young adult, and underwent dialysis for a few years before receiving a living kidney from an altruistic donor, said: “I can’t thank my donor enough – I don’t think people who donate actually realise how much they are giving back. It’s a big thing, it changed my life, and it gave me my life back.”
Another speaker, Jag Purewal, who also explored becoming a kidney donor, spoke of his thought on infusing spirituality into healthcare, particularly around highly sensitive subjects such as organ donation, which requires such a large sacrifice on the recipient’s part.
A question was asked by the audience around how the panel members overcame their fear in receiving and donating a kidney. Most poignantly, Anju Kaur responded by expressing the strength she believes she now has as a result of her past harrowing health experiences, and how she believes her faith in God helped her to go through CKD, dialysis and finally receiving a living kidney.
On Living Kidney Donation, Dr Hayer said: “Kidney donation is truly a transformative gift for the recipient. It offers a new lease of life, hope and joy rather than dialysis, which is substantially more challenging. There is a real need for more south Asian kidney donors.”
Brief Fact File on Kidney Donation
About 1 in 10 people in the UK have chronic kidney disease, but only a few develop serve kidney failure requiring dialysis of transplantation.
Kidney transplant offers best outcomes in terms of quality of life and life expectancy when compared to dialysis.
Deceased donation happens when somebody who is on the organ donor register has passed away. Their kidneys can then be transplanted into somebody who is a potential match.
Since the year 2020 by law everyone is an organ unless they choose to opt out.
There are 3 living kidney donor schemes.
Directed donation is when the donor chose to give their kidney to a specific person.
Altruistic donation is when the donor does not name a specific person to get their organ. The match is arranged based on medical compatibility with a patient in need.
Paired donation involves two or more pairs of living kidney donors and transplant candidates who do not have matching blood types. The candidates “trade” donors so that each candidate receives a kidney from a donor with a compatible blood type.