IN months to come, a new bill is expected to be tabled in the National Assembly by Minister of Public Health Dr. George Norton that will enable various forms of transplant surgery at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). At a press conference on the success of the first kidney transplant surgery that was recently done by local doctors at GPHC, the Public Health Minister explained that kidney transplantation has become the treatment of choice for most patients with end-stage kidney diseases.

He noted that in some patients, kidney transplant by itself is not optimal treatment but rather combined kidney-pancreas transplantation.
For this reason, the Public Health Minister assured that “very shortly we will be putting on the order paper in Parliament a legislation, a bill rather, that will become an act that will facilitate other forms of transplantation that is necessary in our country”.
The average cost of a kidney transplant surgery at private hospitals is around Gy$7M while now at GPHC, with a local team of general medical practitioners spearheaded by a kidney transplant surgeon that was set up mere months ago, costs below Gy$1M.
This team has successfully performed its first kidney transplant surgery on 24 year-old Kiran Hardyal on Tuesday, utilising resources owned by the hospital and backed by collaborative efforts between the Ministry of Health, the University of Calgary in Canada and GPHC itself.
Transplant surgeon, Dr. Kishore Persaud, having completed his medical studies in Guyana, has been awarded a Fellowship by GPHC to specialise in kidney transplant at the University of Calgary. Upon returning to Guyana, he was mandated to develop and execute a kidney transplant department for patients who have been tirelessly waiting for kidney transplants.
A team of general medical practitioners, a dietician, a pharmacist and a social worker was then put together by Dr. Persaud along with the establishment of two chronic kidney disease clinics at GPHC.
Within these two clinics, patients both young and old who have long been waiting on kidney transplants were able to receive treatment and schedule appointments for the transplant surgery.
Thus far, ten patients are lined up for kidney transplant surgeries for the next few months, and four of them are scheduled for November. All ten of the patients already have kidney donors.
Importantly, one of the reasons the patients never had their transplant done is because of financial aspects and secondly, because the hospital never had a transplant surgeon until the arrival of Dr. Persaud.
GPHC however, in the last four years, has started an initiative to advance its capacity to deal with patients that have kidney problems. But the hospital ceased kidney transplants a while ago because of the unavailability of a stationary transplant surgeon.

In brief remarks, Dr. Persaud said he will work closely with the Ministry of Health to set up a donor system where patients can feel free to donate their organs in high cases of death. In furtherance, Dr. Persaud said this service will continue on a monthly basis once the resources are available.
The hospital, according to Minister Norton, is finding it difficult to maintain the number of persons who constantly need dialysis since it subsidizes the treatment for these patients. However, he said that with Dr. Persaud’s team, he is hopeful that this said notion will cease.
Meanwhile, Minister Norton pledged his support to the general medical practitioners and assured them that the opportunity exists for them to further their studies in transplant surgery once the requirements are met.

By Shivanie Sugrim