Free renal transplants from next month

Islamabad : The Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) is all set to become the first government hospital in Islamabad and Rawalpindi to begin the otherwise costly kidney transplants free of charge.

According to medical specialists, private hospitals charge a patient with renal failure from Rs2 million to Rs2.4 million for this surgical procedure along with admission and medical supplies to enable him or her to lead a normal life.

The transplant, which involves the replacement of the damaged kidney with a healthy one, is carried out only after an evaluation committee verifies that the kidney is donated by the patient’s blood relative on his or her free will.

Under the law, the patients seeking transplant can get kidneys from the immediate blood relations only.

The PIMS, the capital’s premier government hospital, used to transplant kidneys at a limited scale in the 90s but it got suspended due to the retirement of the transplant surgeon.

Now, the hospital has planned to resume the renal transplant early next month.

“Initially, there will be two to three renal transplants and the number will gradually go up,” an insider told ‘The News’.

He also said the nephrologists would prepare cases, while urologists would transplant kidneys into patients with renal failure with the help of veinologists and anaesthetists.

The insider said initially, all kidney patients would get transplant free of charge but later, the hospital would charge the wealthy patients.

He said the PIMS had all facilities, medical supplies, manpower and funds required to begin free transplant and would be the first public sector health centre in the region to do the procedure.

When contacted, PIMS executive director Dr Raja Amjad Mehmood confirmed the start of free kidney transplants at the hospital in the first week of July and said the patients were being prepared for it.