Korle Bu Teaching Hospital performs first kidney transplant

The first kidney transplants in the nation were carried out by a local team of medical professionals at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) on two patients.

The procedures were carried out by the Ghanaian team, which included specialized doctors, nurses, and anesthetists, on July 4 and 5. The two patients, both male, are now recovering at the institution.

Female donors who served as them are doing OK and have already been released.

The crew had access to two foreigners, a theatre technician and a transplant surgeon, as confidence boosters.

The average cost of each procedure is $21,000.

The First Sky Group, a local private firm, funded the operations.

The First Sky Group will be providing financial support to the hospital so that it may execute three additional operations next month.

The discovery will benefit patients greatly because many of them previously had to travel to South Africa or India for such expensive treatments that cost over $250,000.

Briefing

At a press conference to celebrate the accomplishments of the KBTH and its staff, a urologist, Professor Mathew Kyei, explained that the hospital’s capacity analysis revealed that it could only perform three surgeries per month, so even though six patients had been scheduled for surgery, only three would be carried out the following month. Korle Bu

He claimed that approximately 1,000 people were undergoing dialysis at various hospitals across the nation right now. Korle Bu

The First Sky Group, however, pays for 250 patients to get dialysis at the KBTH three times per week.

Update

The first patient began producing urine 24 hours after the first surgery, which was a positive indication that his body had synchronized with the new kidney, according to Professor James Edward Mensah, Head of the Department of Surgery at KBTH, who provided an update on the two patients. Korle Bu

He said that up to this point, an ethical committee made up of surgeons, attorneys, and other specialists had been established to develop rules to make sure the hospital did not get into any legal wrangling over its kidney transplant. Korle Bu

According to Prof. Mensah, the committee would guarantee that contributors received proper counseling and information as well as that there was no financial compulsion.

Sky First Group

At the meeting, First Sky Group Executive Chairman Eric Seddy Kutortse stated that his company has been helping KBTH patients receive dialysis since 2016 and has so far spent GH $30 million on this endeavor.

Additionally, he mentioned earlier, the organization has paid $250,000 for each patient and their donors to support three individuals to receive kidney transplants in India.

A team from Birmingham, England, was brought into the nation in 2019 to carry out four kidney transplant surgery, Mr. Kutortse continued. Korle Bu

He explained that because kidney transplants are so expensive, the group decided to assist the KBTH’s efforts to do local transplants in order to lower costs and enable more patients to receive free kidneys.

The First Sky Group’s Executive Chairman assured that his company would continue to offer free dialysis to its beneficiaries at the KBTH and free kidney transplants to anyone who met the KBTH’s requirements for surgery. Korle Bu

According to Mr. Kutortse, the First Sky Group and the KBTH have established a working committee to construct an ultra-modern kidney transplant center that will be entirely supported by the business.

Advantages

Prof. Vincent Boima, Head of Nephrology at KBTH, described the benefits of a renal transplant and noted that Ghana was one of the sub-Saharan African nations with the highest incidence of kidney disease.

Although it was a condition that could be prevented, he claimed that young people, whose ages ranged from 20 to 50, were the most impacted.

According to Prof. Boima, kidney disease is a quiet illness that is primarily brought on by a person’s environment and way of life.

The majority of patients, he continued, were unaware of their condition until they had reached the point in their illness when they needed to have dialysis three times each week.

The head of nephrology at KBTH claimed that while transplantation was affordable and allowed patients to resume their regular lives, it ended up costing more for patients who had to travel with their donors because it could not be performed domestically. Korle Bu

According to Prof. Boima, the main goal of the KBTH is to prevent patients from leaving the nation for kidney or other transplants.

He added, “We have the team, we have the men.”

Speaking on the future of transplantation at KBTH, CEO Dr. Opoku Ware Ampomah said the hospital had some of the most skilled human resources on the continent, but that access to resources was a problem that had caused many of its employees to leave in droves in search of better opportunities.

He claimed that the hospital was fighting for the creation of a legal framework for organ donation and harvesting so that people may donate their organs when they passed away in order to ensure that transplantation had a solid legal foundation in the nation. Korle Bu

Even while KBTH could do corneal transplants, it currently had to import the cornea, a circumstance that, according to Dr. Ampomah, could be readily fixed if a law were in place.

“The expertise and skills are there, but we need an environment that supports transplant services,” he said.

Only a small number of kidney patients could afford the surgery, the CEO of KBTH noted as he thanked the First Sky Group for supporting KBTH to assist kidney patients.

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