– The story of 38 year old Reena Sultan

Despite receiving a kidney transplant 10 years ago, 38-year-old Reena Sultan is in need of another urgent kidney transplant to remedy her ailing condition and save her life.
Reena received medical treatment in the year 2007 in India, after her brother donated one of his kidneys to her.  The transplant was done in India since at the time that level of medical care was not offered locally.
After receiving the treatment years ago, Reena was once again able to return to her normal, everyday activities. She became employed once again and could take care of herself without much assistance from others. But in October last year, Rena said, that she began feeling ill again. When she visited local hospitals she was informed that kidney she acquired from her brother in 2007 had begun to fail and she needed treatment to remedy her ailments.
Her treatment involved hemodialysis (or as it is more commonly called dialysis) thrice weekly to purify her blood and engage in the extracorporeal removal of some of the body’s waste products. Reena and her husband, Fazil however, said that they can barely afford the dialysis.
This dialysis treatment involves removing blood from the body and passing through a ‘dialyzer’, a two-part filter that acts like an artificial kidney. The unwanted particles are filtered out and removed from the body and the filtered the blood returns to the body.
The process is ideally done three times a week and usually lasts about three to five hours per session. “It takes long and when I’m done, for days after I feel weak,” Reena said.
For the dialysis treatment, Reena had an intravenous catheter inserted into the superior vena cava of her heart through the internal jugular vein on the right side of her neck. A catheter is a thin tube inserted in the body temporarily for medical treatment and this was used for Reena’s dialysis treatment instead of the preferred arteriovenous fistula, which is a direct connection of an artery to a vein usually inserted in the forearm.
Fazil noted that since his wife is petite, local doctors were unable to attach the fistula to the small blood vessels in Reena’s forearm. Thus, doctors had to insert the catheter which is more likely to become infected as opposed to the fistula, which becomes integrated into the body, since it is made from the blood vessels. It has been eight months since Reena got the catheter, two months after its usage should technically be discontinued.
A correspondence from her current local doctor, shown to the Guyana Chronicle, indicates that Reena’s health is rapidly deteriorating and she is in need of urgent medical attention.
Reena has already secured another suitable and compatible kidney donor, her 24-year-old nephew Rayad. The woman is currently seeking public assistance to aid her in acquiring the GY$5 million required to pay for her treatment and fund her trip to India along with her husband and her nephew.
Though Sultan can get the treatment right here in Guyana at the Dr. Balwant Singh’s Hospital, it is more costly to undergo the treatment locally. She also noted that the nephrologist who treated her the last time in India is very familiar with her and her condition and both Sultan and her doctor would correspond regularly about her condition.
Reena and Fazil are appealing to businesses, other organisations and the general public to render assistance to save her life. Anyone desirous of rendering assistance can contact the couple on their telephone or cell numbers: 227-4167 or 693-1191 or visit them at Lot 199 Charlotte Street, Georgetown. Funds can also be deposited to their Republic Bank account #298-935-8.