You can offer another the gift of life

August 15, 2005

Wendy Mbaile's life was run by her medical condition - renal failure. She lost two unborn children and three times a week, for seven years, she spent four hours on a dialysis machine flushing her failing kidney.

"It was the most difficult part of my life. Sometimes it's hard to believe that I went through all that," Mbaile says.

Today, Mbaile is a totally different person. No longer does she spend hours in a hospital bed hooked up to a machine. No longer does she leave work early. And no longer do her colleagues at the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department shy away from working with her.

In 2002, Mbaile received a miracle - a new kidney.

"When they say you have been given a second chance, they mean it. I have never felt so good," she says.

At 41, and a month after her transplant, Mbaile began studying through Unisa.

"Next year I will be doing my honours in Adult Education and Training. Before the transplant, I could not study. I was always tired and the medication would make me very sleepy."

And Mbaile is not the only one to have benefited from organ transplantation.

Nine years ago, Wilberforce Nyati was on death's door: a doctor told him he had only two months to live.

He had no energy and climbing a flight of stairs was "like climbing a mountain".

But today the 52-year-old from the Eastern Cape, who now lives in Gauteng, takes a flight of stairs in his stride. He works a full day and is busy completing a diploma in financial planning.

In 2003, Nyati underwent a kidney transplant. Since then his life has been radically changed.

"I had kidney failure. I thought I was going to die," he says.

Nyati's life was saved first by renal dialysis, which he had to go through for close on seven years before he was finally able to get the transplant he so desperately needed. Eventually a suitable deceased donor was found for him.

"Friends and family were surprised how quickly and well I recovered after the transplant," he says.

But Mbaile and Nyati can count themselves among the lucky ones.

According to Mande Taubkin, the Netcare National Trauma Transplant Manager, an estimated 5 000 people in South Africa are awaiting transplants, and it's not just kidneys.

"We need hearts, livers, lungs, kidneys, pancreases and corneas," Taubkin says.

Yet while there is a dire need, just over 1 000 people underwent transplants last year.

In 2004, 34 people had heart transplants, 677 received corneas and 377 received kidneys.

This is down 27% from 2003 when 1 400 transplants were done.

"The tragedy of this is that the vast majority of transplants today are highly successful and give recipients a completely new life, but many people lack an understanding of the process of organ donation.

"For thousands of sick people there is no other option and the high number of successes speak for themselves: transplants save lives," Taubkin says.

Nyati and Mbaile had no idea about transplantation before they were extremely ill.

"And even when I found out that this was possible, I was still afraid. I had heard stories about people dying but I went for counselling and realised that this is the best option," Mbaile says.

Yet there are organisations and individuals working hard to inform people about organ donation.

August is Organ Donor month and the Organ Donor Foundation (ODF), a charity that aims to address the critical shortage of organ donors in South Africa by building a data base of prospective donors, is using it to raise awareness and call on people to become organ donors.

Phillipa Cheek of the ODF says all that people need to do to become an organ donor is to register with the foundation.

Most organ transplants are done after the donor has been declared clinically brain dead.

"It is only in the case of a relative who is a direct match, donating a kidney or a piece of liver to an ill relative, that the organ is harvested from a living person," Taubkin says.

She adds that in the case of a clinically brain-dead person, one healthy person can transform the lives of at least 20 people.

In South Africa in 2004:

Over 1 047 organ transplants were done, 27% down from 2003 when 1 400 transplants were done
There was a 27% drop in the number of transplants undertaken compared to 2003
28 heart transplants
Five lung transplants
Eight kidney/pancreas transplants
Eight liver transplants
252 kidney transplants
744 people had their sight restored through a cornea transplant
29% of kidney donors were related to the recipient
Groote Schuur Hospital, where the first heart transplant was done, performed three heart transplants last year
State hospitals performed 46,5%
Netcare hospitals performed 41%
The Donald Gordon Medical Centre did 13%
and Afrox hospitals did 3%.

Figures from the Organ Donor Foundation website www.organdonor.org.za.

Become a donor:

Register at www.organdonor.org.za or
Call the Organ Donor Foundation toll free on 0800-22-66-11.

The foundation will send you a credit-sized card to fill out and carry in your wallet, along with two small stickers to put on your ID document and driver's license.

Discuss your decision with your next-of-kin, as they will have to approve an organ transplant if you die.

Remember, one healthy person can transform the lives of at least 20 people.

This article posted September 12, 2005.

You can offer another the gift of life

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