Dr. Ahmad Kaddourah and Dr. Abubakr Imam.
Sidra Medicine, the specialised hospital for women and children healthcare, which recently launched its paediatric kidney transplant programme, is planning for more transplants in the coming months.
The Qatar Foundation’s entity - Sidra Medicine - is working closely with Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) and Qatar Organ Donation Centre (Heba) to facilitate the transplants, said Dr Abubakr Imam, Division Chief Nephrology at Sidra Medicine.
“Sidra Medicine is now fully responsible for the paediatric renal transplant service in Qatar. We have a list of children in need for kidney transplant who are undergoing the necessary medical tests before the transplant procedure,” he told The Peninsula.
Surgeons from Sidra Medicine and HMC jointly performed the first live donor renal transplants between mother and child, marking the launch of paediatric renal transplant services at Sidra Medicine, recently. While the HMC team handled the mother’s surgery, Sidra Medicine transplanted the kidney to the child.
Sidra Medicine has since performed two kidney transplants together with the team from HMC as the latter deals with adults whose kidneys were donated by living donors.
“We have a great level of integration and cooperation between the two facilities, it is not only in transplants but also in the process of promoting kidney donation among the people living in Qatar,” said Dr Ahmad Kaddourah, Paediatric Nephrology Attending Physician in Sidra Medicine.
If the transplantation is from a living donor, the surgery will be held at Sidra Medicine. The HMC team will harvest the organ from the adult donor through a laparoscopic procedure and the Sidra Medicine team will perform the transplant in the paediatric patient.
The success of these programmes would not be possible without organ donation. “We really want to stress the importance of this noble deed as countless lives can be saved by pledging to be an organ donor,” said Dr Kaddourah, who also oversees acute extracorporeal therapies at Sidra Medicine.
“Children with kidney failure will require dialysis, which is the life-saving treatment needed to purify blood and get rid of excess fluid when kidneys can no longer do that. Essentially, dialysis performs the same function as a kidney. Dialysis is usually performed until the child receives a kidney transplant,” he added.
Sidra Medicine has more living donor surgeries planned in the next few months.
“The HMC team will harvest the adult organs surgically at Sidra, and will provide both patients, the adult and the child, the appropriate care from the admission to discharge,” said Dr Abubakr.
Sidra Medicine is also ready to perform organ transplants from deceased donors too. “We are working with Heba to facilitate the process of deceased organ donation in the future,” he added. Sidra Medicine is the only nephrology service in Qatar offering comprehensive, multidisciplinary, tertiary and quaternary service for children under 18 diagnosed with renal and urologic disorders. It has advanced medical equipment and well trained and qualified staff to treat children with renal disorders.
