PESHAWAR: The public sector Institute of Kidney Diseases (IKD) has expanded infrastructure for renal transplants to perform more cases in view of the increasing number of patients in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The provincial government established Medical Transplantation Regulatory Authority (MTRA) through legislation in 2014, with supporting rules finalised in 2017 to combat illegal organ transplants and oversee ethical, safe and transparent transplantation practices in the province under which the first case was performed in IKD in 2018.

The case was performed by Prof Asif Malik, a transplant surgeon at IKD and also the administrator of MTRA, after which about 100 legal transplants were conducted. After his retirement, there was a pause in the cases but the administration of IKD continued to make arrangements and continue transplants.

Dr Shahid Ahmad Khan, who worked as a transplant surgeon at King Faisal Hospital in Saudi Arabia, has performed more than 80 transplants in IKD till his resignation last year. Dr Shahid is now working on developing the first-ever renal transplant ward in Khyber Teaching Hospital, Peshawar.

The institute will also train doctors to be deployed in other hospitals

However, there is no looking back for IKD as it has successfully conducted 34 cases since middle of the last year. The transplants were performed by a team of specialists including Dr Ahmed Nawaz and Dr Akhtar Nawaz.

IKD director Dr Mohammad Kamran Khan told Dawn that the institute had also recruited third transplant surgeon Dr Samiur Rehman while a fourth one would also join IKD soon.

“With increase in number of surgeons, we want to conduct at least one case per day because the number of patients on waiting list is about 90 and it is increasing. We need to expedite cases,” he said.

Dr Kamran, a paediatric surgeon, said that they had been performing eight cases per month but due to the support of the chairman of Board of Governors, Prof Noorul Iman, and dean of the institute, Prof Shehzad Akbar Khan, they were well on the way to expand services to benefit more patients.

“From next month, another surgeon will also join the team to accelerate cases as we have already expanded infrastructure to cope with the load of patients,” he said.

Dr Kamran said that presently, two to three transplants were conducted every week that would get tripled with the deployment of another team. He said that all the cases were performed under Sehat Card Plus scheme of free treatment of the provincial government.

“Additionally, transplant nephrology unit is also being developed on which work has already been started and consultant, trainee and specialist registrars have been hired,” he said.

Dr Kamran said that the increased bed capacity and human resource would help those patients, whose both kidneys were damaged and they were surviving on dialysis. He said that dialysis was no treatment and such patients required transplants. “MTRA has been working hard to promote organ donations and help needy patients,” he added.

He said that IKD had all services regarding renal diseases and upgradation of renal transplant programme would lead to training of doctors, who could be deployed in other hospitals in future.

Officials at MTRA said they had launched deceased organs donation programme to cover the widening gap between demand and supply of organs and ensure treatment of patients.

“Scores of people are awaiting renal and other organ transplants but the number of donors is few and cannot meet the demand, therefore, deceased organ donation programme has been launched,” they said.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2026