Swap that saves

“A woman from Kenya,Anna Gidenji,whose donor was Arif Kollar from Mumbai,came to India after her sister’s kidney did not pass the required HLA test,” said Dr Ganesh Sanap,general physician and one of the brains behind the swap initiative.

Usually,it is the family members of a patient that offer to donate kidneys,but in many cases,there may not be a match and hence the need for a suitable donor,said Sanap. There can be several reasons for delays in transplants despite a donor being available within a family. Sometimes,blood groups differ or there are other medical concerns. In such cases,the registry tries to match recipients with other potential donors who may similarly be unable to donate to their family members. In such cases,the donors and recipients are swapped,as permitted under the Transplantation of Human Organs Act,1994,and both transplants are facilitated.

ASTRA carries out cross-matching of registered donors and recipients. The waiting period to find a matching swap is about three months,which is short as compared to the waiting list with authorisation committees.

Since its inception in January 2011,the registry has made 27 transplants possible. However,this has not been without hiccups. Two years ago,the NGO planned a domino kidney transplant by forming a human chain of 10. Sanap said,“Nine months after we began the search for matching pairs of donors and recipients,the paperwork was still underway and police were yet to give us the go-ahead. One of the members expired and we had to start all over again.”

Sanap said they only register a member after careful examination and scrutiny of documents,to cast aside fears of attracting rackets. “The more the number of people register,the more we can be of help to those in need,” said Sanap. ASTRA charges Rs 200 as registration fees for donors and recipients and they do not have to incur any other expenses. The registry has five more surgeries in the pipeline after the the successful domino transplant last month.