Garki Hospital Abuja Nigeria Records First kidney Transplant

Doctors at Garki Hospital in Abuja successfully transplanted a kidney into a 19-year-old boy, the first such surgery at the hospital considered Nigeria’s first public-private partnership.

Dr. Nadey Hakim, transplant surgeon at London’s Hammersmith Hospital, and Dr. Elijah Miner, chief medical director at Garki Hospital, led the surgical team which spent hours in a theatre to remove the left kidney of a 42-year-old man before transplanting into the donor’s 19-year-old son diagnosed with end-stage renal disease in a second theatre.

Hakim described the surgery as successful and “fantastic”. “Nice kidney,” he announced after it was removed. 

It is the second kidney transplant he’s performed since December when he transplanted a kidney into a 20-year-old boy at View Point Hospital in Abuja.

A second donor gave a kidney for his friend of 35 years. The surgical team worked late into night to complete both surgeries.

Marathon surgeries

A total three kidney transplants were completed by mid-Sunday, and four more open-heart surgeries are scheduled at the hospitals over six days.

The cardiac surgeries will be conducted entirely by Nigerian doctors, said Dr Miner. 

But Hakim was chosen to lead the kidney transplant because of his expertise-successfully completing over 2,000 organ transplants and authored papers on the subject.

Dr. Miner defended the choice of Dr. Hakim to lead the team. “It is difficult for our people to trust our own people. And our people don’t deserve any less [than to be operated on by renowned surgeons in the field]. It doesn’t matter whether he’s black or white.”

Up to 30 doctors, nurses and anesthetists monitored the surgery streamed over the internet-along with journalists from major national media organizations providing live coverage on social media.

Beating cost

Garki is using the surgeries to show Nigerian doctors can handle delicate, cutting edge surgeries patients normally travel abroad for.

Like in an earlier surgery in July to close a hole in the heart of two-year-old Joanna-who had a congenital heart defect-Garki is having to bear some treatment cost.

“There is too much capital flight going out of the country. What we want is to start doing these things in the country and hopefully in time with government support we can even bring down the prices as low as some of the countries people go to,” said Dr. Miner.

Kidney transplants in Nigeria cost up to N4.5 million-and experts estimate that managing chronic kidney disease with dialysis for 18 months alone could cost the same as a transplant.