RIYADH: Thirty-three-year-old Tawfeeq is among the estimated 54.5 percent male hemodialysis patients in the Kingdom. Tawfeeq has been suffering for the last 10 years, and one of the less fortunate among the 2,700 patients on a renal transplant waiting list — not including the estimated 2,000 being evaluated for inclusion on the list.
He already received one kidney transplant, but his body rejected the organ. Now he is one of about 11,000 patients in the country who must be hooked up to a dialysis machine for four hours, three times a week.
To serve these thousands of patients, the Kingdom has 175 machines.
According to Dr. Fathiya Solaimani, consultant nephrologist and head of dialysis department at a government hospital, the Kingdom needs more of these machines; as it is, she says her hospital cannot meet the demand.
Despite his prolonged suffering, Tawfeeq holds a great deal of appreciation to the royal decree that grants him a fully paid day vacation for every dialysis day. The highest number of dialysis patients is in the socially highly productive age group of 26 to 45 years, and the numbers of patients is growing faster than the rate of kidney donors.
Dr. Bishr Al-Attar, medical director of the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation (SCOT), said the number of renal transplant patients grows by 7.6 percent annually, and that donations are not keeping up with this increasing demand — even as more people realize the important of posthumous organ donation.
“The donation approvals do not exceed 35 percent of the total brain death cases, while we are still faced with 65 percent refusal,” says Al-Attar, referring to the utilization of organs after a patient is determined to be dead but whose body is artificially kept alive by life support.
Between 400 and 500 cases of brain death are reported to the SCOT every year, but there is still broad resistance to the idea of harvesting organs (including kidneys, livers and hearts) from the dead.
Riyadh resident Abdullah retired six years ago and now helps his wife Hamda, 45, with her dialysis treatment. He accompanies her three times a week to the clinic. “The dialysis center is old and the chairs are in a bad shape and not comfortable,” he said. “The patients are there for four long hours, the least that can be done to them is to provide them with new, comfortable seats and some nourishing food.”
Many efforts are made to ease the suffering of hemodialysis patients, such as a recent decision by Saudia to allow renal patient 240 kgs of medication and solution on international and domestic flights.
The government is also working to provide facilities for the donors in order to encourage more donors to participate in reducing the existing dilemma, through offering a reward of SR50,000 to the donor’s family.
Kidney donation is unique because a person can live with one kidney and donate the other.
Yet more measures are expected to bridge the gap between supply and dem-and of kidneys as the number of renal failure cases grows in the Kingdom.
