ABMH Performs Six Kidney Transplants, Says Organ Merchandise Illegal

The Management of the Afe Babalola Multi-system Hospital (ABMH) has counseled Nigerians against embarking on medical tourism abroad, saying patronage of competent and well-equipped home- grown hospitals would strengthen the country’s healthcare sector.

The hospital management, which warned against human organ merchandise, said it has been discouraging the practice, by ensuring that only those who are blood relations or socially-related to patients make organ donations in the hospital.

The ABMH’s Chief Medical Director, Dr. Kolawole Ogundipe, said this in Ado Ekiti at the weekend, while revealing the breakthrough recorded by the hospital in kidney transplantation and the general management of renal disease.

Disclosing that the hospital has competent experts and facilities to offer dialysis and treat other chronic kidney diseases now on the increase, Ogundipe, said a total of six successful kidney transplants had been performed in the hospital.

“In all, we have performed six kidney transplants between October and now, and they were all successful. The three most recent included a pediatric kidney patient involving a 15-year old girl and two middle aged men.

“No hospital in Nigeria has the number of dialysis facilities and experts that we parade. The machines run 400 sections of dialysis monthly. We even have specific machines to treat renal patients with HIV or hapatisis B or C to prevent risk of infection.

“The major challenge has always been how to get the donors. We are always careful to ensure that donors are blood relation or related socially to the patients, so that there won’t be reason for the people to do it for financial benefit. People should not sell their organs; it is against the law.

“Our citizens, especially people of means should stop unnecessary medical tourism abroad, ABMH is a perfect destination of choice that can offer affordable and efficient medical treatments”, Ogundipe said.

Reeling out further medical exploits already recorded by the hospital, Ogundipe disclosed that it had performed over 200 interventional and open heart surgeries within a spate of four years it began operations.

A Consultant Nephrologist and Coordinator of Kidney Transplant Programme at ABMH, Dr. Stephen Oguntola, said the operations were performed by a 10-man team of experts in the hospital.

Oguntola stated that post -transplantation observations of all the patients showed that they are all in stable medical conditions and responding well with good prognosis of full recovery from the renal disease.

Oguntola said: “The 15-year old patient started treatment for systemic Lupus in 2017, which is common in female. She was on medication for five years, after which she developed evidence of kidney disease.

“She had visited many hospitals before being referred here. We did the transplant successfully and she is now making a litre of urine daily.

“The two others are above 40 years. Their renal problems were traceable to long years of hypertension. They have been treated and one of them can now excrete 4.7 litres of urine daily”.

The patients, who interacted with newsmen, applauded the experts for their proficiency and compliance with international best practices, describing their relationships with them as superb and that the cost was highly affordable.