PESHAWAR, June 29: Doctors at the Khyber Teaching Hospital, who performed the first unsuccessful kidney transplant at the public sector hospital, have claimed that they are qualified to conduct the operation even without the required infrastructure.

The kidney transplanted to the patient, Masood Shah, on June 16 was removed on June 19 because it had become gangrenous.

“It doesn’t mean that the operation was unsuccessful due to lack of infrastructure, but it was part of the complications,” said nephrologist Dr Nisar Anwar.

He said sometimes patients died even during simple operations, while it (Shah’s) was a major case. He also denied the charge that the operation had been performed without the permission of the head of the surgery department, saying that “we do not need permission from anybody because it was a life-saving procedure and needed to be performed at the earliest.”

According to the doctor, the patient is still alive, but would need dialysis for two hours on alternate day, for his entire life.