Recipient of Aalin’s kidneys leaves hospital

Ten-year-old Shreya, who had received both kidneys from ten-month-old Aalin, the State’s youngest deceased organ donor, left SAT Hospital on Thursday, making a full and healthy recovery.

Both kidneys of Aalin, measuring just 5 cm each, were transplanted in Shreya, who had been diagnosed with severe renal failure following bilateral Vesicoureteral Reflux, when she was admitted in a critical condition at SAT Hospital at eight years of age.

She has been on maintenance haemodialysis at the Paediatric Nephrology unit at SAT Hospital since then.

A paediatric renal transplant team, led by Haris Chirackal, the Head of Urology, Government Medical College Hospital Thiruvananthapuram; Head of the department (HoD) of Paediatric Nephrology Susan Uthup; paediatric surgery HoD Sivakumar; and Anaesthesiology Associate Professor Ansar, among many others, had taken 12 hours to complete the surgery.

This was the second paediatric renal transplant done by the team. Both surgeries were done totally free of cost by including the care under the State government’s treatment assistance schemes.