'32 kidney patients waiting for donors have died since 2007'

MANILA, Philippines - Thirty-two patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) have died since 2007 while waiting for kidney donors, the Philippine Medical Association (PMA) said yesterday.

“They failed to undergo a life-saving kidney procedure after being in a long organ recipient waiting list,” noted Dr. Arthur Catli, executive director of the PMA which had called on the Department of Health (DOH) to review its policies on organ donation.

Catli claimed the data are incomplete since it covers only NKTI.    

“So there is a strong probability that there may be more than 32 patients nationwide, not included in our statistics, who died while waiting for these life saving kidneys.”

In 2008, the DOH had banned foreigners from receiving kidneys from Filipino patients who are not related to them by blood to prevent the commercialization of organ donation.

Eventually, the DOH had also prohibited “non-directed” organ donation, which the PMA believes had been detrimental to Filipino patients because it prevents a donor from offering his kidneys without an intended or targeted donor.

Instead, the department is now strongly pushing for deceased or cadaveric donation but experts believe it will take a long time to perfect this procedure because of the country’s poor hospital networking system and Filipinos’ cultural belief about respect for the dead.

According to Catli, there are now some 570 ESRD patients at the NKTI who are waiting for kidney donors.

“Our patients will die if the problem on the shortage of donated organs will not be resolved immediately,” Catli added.

Citing NKTI records, he said the “usual” Filipino kidney transplants performed at the hospital have gone down by 20 percent while the demand for donated kidney is going up by 10 percent annually.

“There are 12,000 dialysis patients in the country today. Of these, at least half are suitable transplant candidates. If there are 6,000 transplantable patients in the country and only less than 500 get a kidney a year, then only eight percent of the need in the Philippines can be served,” he added.