PESHAWAR: The Institute of Kidney Diseases of the public sector Hayatabad Medical Complex has begun free renal transplants from its own resources following the suspension of those surgical procedures under the government’s health insurance programme of the Sehat Card Plus.

Free renal and liver transplants under the SCP came to a halt at the province’s both public and private sector hospitals early this month due to a lack of funds with the caretaker government to the misery of people awaiting surgeries.

Until now, around 130 renal transplants have been conducted on the basis of the SCP.

“We have started free transplants after the suspension of surgical procedures on the Sehat Card Plus due to the exhaustion of reserve funds to help patients,” lead transplant surgeon at the IKD Dr Shahid Ahmad Khan told Dawn. He said around 30 patients awaited transplants under the SCP as a lack of fund delayed procedures.

The surgeon said IKD director Dr Mazhar Khan had got approval from the HMC Board of Governors to conduct around 25 renal transplants either free of charge or at nominal fee to help the poor patients, who couldn’t afford high surgery costs.

Cash-strapped govt recently stopped those surgeries under Sehat Card Plus

Having performed over 1,000 renal transplants during his 17-year work at the King Faisal Hospital Saudi Arabia, he carried out five such surgeries at the IKD since he joined it early this year.

Dr Shahid said all patients, who underwent transplantation, as well as their donors, were in good health.

The IKD pioneered renal transplants in the public sector but with the retirement of lead surgeon Prof Asif Malik in 2020, the procedures got suspended due to unavailability of trained surgeons. The institute signed a memorandum of understanding with Dr Saeed Akhtar senior surgeons, who imparted training to its staff members in Islamabad.

However, the IKD recruited Dr Shahid due to the hectic schedule of Dr Saeed.

Until now, Dr Shahid has done five transplants, including four under the SCP.

He said he had developed proper protocols for renal transplant patients to ensure that the organ recipients and donors stay healthy and prevent postoperative complications.

“We send patients home after a week of surgery and advise medication as well as dates for follow-up visits. We have established a ward and the ICU, where trained staff members look after patients,” he said.

The surgeon said every transplant patient got Rs1.4 million from the SCP but the suspension of the facility under the insurance programme troubled them all as transplant was required for their survival.

“A transplant costs around Rs500,000. Initially, we [IKD] will be doing transplants free of charge but later, patients could be asked to pay part of the costs,” he said.

Meanwhile, IKD transplant registrar Dr Mian Fazal Manan told Dawn that three brothers, one sister and a daughter donated kidneys to the five patients who underwent free transplantation at the institute.

He said it took almost 45 days to prepare patients for the surgery.

“Both [kidney] donors and recipients are subjected to a battery of investigations to determine their fitness for the surgical procedure,” he said.

The registrar said the institute also received approval from the Medical Transplantation Regulatory Authority to encourage the relatives of patients to become kidney donors to check organ sale.

He said details of both donors and recipients were checked from the Nadra records as per the rules of the MTRA.

Dr Manan said healthy people could donate kidneys to family members as transplant was the only way to save people with damaged kidneys from death.

Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2023