THE TRAGIC death of a five-year-old boy saved the life of a 54-year-old woman in end stage renal failure, Cyprus’ transplant foundation confirmed yesterday.
Phivos Petrou Demosthenous from Larnaca was declared clinically dead on Saturday afternoon at Nicosia general hospital after suffering a brain aneurysm. On Sunday, he was transferred to the Paraskevaidion Surgical and Transplant Foundation after his parents gave surgeons consent to remove their son’s kidneys. Both organs were then transplanted to a 54-year-old patient in end stage renal failure, said Dr George Kyriakides, who heads the foundation.
“The operation was successful and the kidneys started working immediately. We are hoping for good results,” he told the Cyprus Mail. Due to the size of the kidneys, both had to be used for one patient.
According to Kyriakides, Sunday’s procedure was the 13th cadaver transplant this year. “We have had six cadaver donors so far this year, with which we have been able to perform 13 transplants,” he said. “Apart from the little boy, the other donors were all elderly and so we were only able to harvest their kidneys and two or three pairs of eyes for their corneas.”
There have also been three live donor transplants since the beginning of the year, he said.
“In Cyprus, our transplant list is made up of mostly older patients because unlike other countries, the family unit is very close knit and relatives tend to donate their kidneys.”
He said people under 20 normally had a parent or sibling willing to donate one of their organs, “whereas older people do not have a live donor because their parent is either dead or their kidney is not in optimum condition.”
Nevertheless, Kyriakides said that had Phivos’ kidneys been a match for one of the handful of children in need of a kidney transplant at Makarios hospital, he would have gladly have given them the transplant.
“The kidneys did not match and the blood type was not the same for any of the children in end stage renal failure,” he said.
Kyriakides added he was optimistic a transplant co-ordinator scheme would go ahead as soon as the Health Ministry had ironed out all the details.
In order to make better use of possible donors, Kyriakides said state hospitals had to be reorganised and doctors better informed so they could help in harvesting organs from brain dead patients and learn how to approach relatives.
Because, however, neurosurgeons are busy and might not have the time to spend hours with families explaining organ donation, experienced nurses called “transplant co-ordinators” would be appointed to undertake the responsibility.
“In America and Europe there are nurses whose role it is to locate clinically dead patients in hospitals. They then ask the doctor to diagnose if in fact they are brain dead and then approach the relatives to talk about organ donation,” he said. The nurses could be sent on training courses abroad to learn how to deal with relatives and how to broach the sensitive topic.
“In Spain this has been implemented and they rarely lose a clinically dead donor.”
He said the Health Ministry was currently assessing how to implement the scheme and what was necessary to do so.
“I am confident that it will materialise. I don’t know when, but it will,” he said.
