GUYANA has recorded a 100 per cent success rate in kidney transplants done locally so far, since the first ground breaking procedure performed on an 18-year-old male on July 12 last year.

The team of medical doctors who performed the kidney transplants over the weekend. From left: Dr Tara Farley; Dr Eric Elster; Dr Rahul Jindal; Dr Arthur Womble and Dr Purohrt.

Of the four surgeries done to date, all the recipients of kidneys are males, and are reportedly doing well. The first two – Munesh Mangal, 18, and Winston George, 47, are both at home and leading normal lives. George’s surgery was performed on February 1 last.

Meanwhile, the other two on whom transplants were done on Saturday and Sunday last – Jairaj Singh, 55, of Lot 888 Golden Grove, East Bank Demerara, and Mohamed Shariff, 56, of No. Four Village, West Coast Berbice, are both doing well, and currently warded at the Intensive Care Unit of the Georgetown Public Hospital.

The surgeries over the weekend were performed by a team of overseas-based specialists, headed by Dr Rahul Jindal, Fellow of the American College of Doctors, (FACS), who works at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre, United States of America.

Others on the team, assisted by Guyana’s Head of Urology at the GPHC – Dr Purohrt, were: Transplant Surgeon – Dr Edward Falta and Dr Tara Farley (also of the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre); Dr Eric Elster FACS, of the National Medical Centre, U.S.; and Dr Arthur Womble, CRNA of the Athens-Limestone Hospital, Athens. The team was assisted by local doctors and nurses.

Three of the donors for the local kidney transplants were females, while the lone male donor – Brijraj Singh gave a kidney to his father Jairaj, who had his procedure done last Saturday.

Mangal’s was donated by his mother; George’s by his wife and Shariff’s by an undisclosed female.
According to Dr Jindal, the recipients and their donors are doing quite well.