Live Donation In Western Australia

This is from a post by a member at Living Donors Online: http://www.livingdonorsonline.org/dcforum/DCForumID7/4719.html

"Live Donation In Western Australia - Non Directed"

Some people may not know that in Western Australia, as well as directed live donations, two major transplant hospitals in the Perth area do non directed and paired exchanges.

In the case of non directed live donations, the hospitals choose the recipient off the waiting list according to time on list, compatibility etc and both donor and recipient are anonymous to each other.

In the case of paired exchanges, where two people wish to have a donor/recipient transplant with a friend or loved one and they are not compatible, and another pair are in the same boat, they join a hospital run register and when another suitable couple are found that are compatible to the intending recipients they "exchange" donors, a good outcome for both couples.

A twist to this is also a "daisy chain" approach, where there are two couples willing to exchange, but one donor is not compatible with either, but a non directed donor is compatible with one of them, but not someone at the top of the waiting list and the intending donor of one of the recipients they are compatible with is compatible with the person at the top of the waiting list then a transplant can occur with six people involved in a "win win" situation for all six people concerned. Sounds a bit complicated I know.

Although directed live donations can be done in most Captial cities in Australia, as far as I know Western Australia is the only State where non directed or paired exchanges are carried out. The main hospitals for these are Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Nedlands (a Perth near city suburb) and Royal Perth Hospital in Perth.

Living donor/recipient transplants are either done free under Australia's Medicare health system, or by private health insurance for those who prefer this avenue.

Also for donor/recipients from country areas, interstate or with overseas relatives who are live donors or live donor recipients and having their transplant carried out in the Perth area can access cheap accomodation in a near suburb through Kidney Health Australia (equivalent of the US National Kidney Foundation)where they (KHA) have aquired housing for this purpose.

The US are the leaders in living donation and have been doing this type of donation for much longer than anyone else and are the bench mark for others to follow in other countries and I congratulate the US for inspiring others to do the same.

Although other Australian states have been doing both open and closed directed living donations for longer that Western Australia (but not non directed/paired exchanges)the first directed LD transplant in WA was conducted in 1979. I understand the first US directed live kidney donation was in 1953.

Live Donor 2002
Perth Western Australia