My father's information:
Age: 64
Race: Asian
Cause: Uremia caused by long-term high blood pressure. Lost almost all of the renal functions.
Condition: At the worst time, he needed to do dialysis 3 times a week. Every time after the process, he had very bad headache. He was allowed to eat and drink little.
My father went back to visit Asia after living in Canada for 2 years. At home, he was diagnosed to be in the late stage of Uremia. His kidney had lost almost all the functions. To survive, we have only 2 options: 1. dialysis; 2. kidney transplantation. Because of the intolerable headache after every dialysis, my father went for the option 2.
Things went out very well after the decision. We put him into the waiting list in a leading hospital. I also passed his information to my friends who are doctors specialized in kidney transplantation and who are organ agents. Who we know made a lot of difference in the waiting time. My friends worked very proactively in seeking the kidney national wide. Within 3 months, we found an almost-perfect-match kidney donor. The transplant operation was done even when I was still on my flight back home. Now it has been more than a year after the operation. My father lived the normal life again except that he needs to take some medicine daily.
When my father was in hospital, I saw another two foreigners having the kidney transplantation. One is from UK and the other is from Canada. I believe the hospital is quite open to admit foreign patients. They even arrange translators for the foreign patients.
Some conclusions after all of these:
1. Seeking organ donation in other countries is much easier than in US, UK and Canada. The two foreign patients I met in the hospital had been in the waiting list in their countries for more than 6 years. Finally they looked into foreign donation and they got it in half year.
2. The doctors in Asian are far more experienced than their peers in US, UK and Canada. They do tens of operations every year while their peers here do about 10-20 cases a year.
3. The expense is much lower in other countries than here. It costs about 60k-100k USD to cover everything.
4. The earlier for dialysis patient to do transplantation, the better chance for them to survive better and longer. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialysis)
Lastly, I would like to thank God for the blessing for my father. Please feel free to post your questions to me if you would like to learn more about the transplantation abroad. I would be very happy to help.