32 YEARS: A kidney donation may be a gift of life

[okarol]

32 YEARS: A kidney donation may be a gift of life

by Macon Ramos Araneta

EIGHTY-year-old retired Army Col. Mauro Lachica vividly remembers the excruciating back pains he suffered in May 1977 while attending to his job as chief of the Presidential Security Unit in Malacañang.

Lachica said he was rushed to the National Kidney and Transplant Institute where doctors found both his kidneys had shrunk. He was immediately scheduled for surgery to remove the impaired organs.

The Korean war veteran said he would have been history if not for the “gift of life” from a younger sister.

“I would no longer be enjoying the ‘dancing leaves of the trees’ which I see every time I wake up in the morning,” Lachica told Standard Today during a break at the media forum on organ donation hosted by Novartis Healthcare Philippines.

Novartis president Eric van Oppens said the firm was extending full support and sponsoring ethical, legal and non-commercial efforts to promote organ donation and recruit voluntary organ donors.

Conchita Lachica-Carriaga, now 71 years old, had no regrets about doing a good turn.

“Mahal ko po ang kapatid ko at ayaw ko siyang mamatay kaya ibinigay ko sa kanya ang isa kong kidney [I love my brother and I don’t want him to die so I gave him one of my kidneys],” she said.

After the operation in the same month, Lachica said he reported back to his post, providing close-in security to former First Lady Imelda Marcos.

His sister returned to her chores—attending to her four children, and tending a small farm in their hometown in Rosario, La Union.

“Everything was back to normal. I was on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” said Lachica, who described himself as a doting lolo to his 23 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren from seven children.

If not for her sister, Lachica could be among the 5,000 Filipinos dying annually because they cannot find a suitable kidney donor, or afford the costly dialysis.

Citing the need to save patients with kidney failure, institute executive director Dr. Enrique Ona said the waiting list had 150 to 200 patients any minute of the day.

For a person with end-stage organ failure, he said the only chance for survival was an organ transplant.

But the list of recipients is long because transplantable organs and willing organ donors are scarce.

Ona said although dialysis was the first-line treatment for renal failure, it could not fully restore kidney function.

“Only another kidney can perform the role of this vital organ. Moreover, a kidney transplant is better than lifelong dialysis in terms of quality of life, survival and cost.”

Dr. Antonio Paraiso, institute consultant nephrologist, urged stakeholders to help remove the stigma of organ donation through a sustained advocacy.

He said the only way to save the lives of thousands of Filipino patients with kidney failure was to expand the country’s organ pool for transplantation.

According to Ona, the number of brain dead or deceased donors and living donors—the preferred sources of suitable organs—in the country was low.

Ona and Paraiso said everyone could make a lot of difference in other people’s lives.

“Be an organ donor, be a hero,” they said to sum up the advocacy.

The two kidney experts debunked claims that a person with one kidney would give up a normal life. They said advances in medical science and know-how have made modern organ retrieval and transplantation safer.

In practice, a kidney donor only needs to get blood and urine tests and blood pressure checked at least once a year.

Lachica and Carriaga are only two of the persons with one kidney who have been living a normal life for the past several years.

Although they are already in their prime, Lachica and Carriaga still pray for more years to enable them to inspire other people to donate a kidney.

“We want to erase all doubts that living with one kidney makes life difficult,” the said.

Ona said former President Fidel Ramos has always stood as one good example of a donor leading a very fruitful and meaningful life.

The battle-tested general, who also saw action in Korea along with Lachica, has made it a habit whenever he dropped by the institute to show his scar to patients undergoing dialysis.

“I have only one kidney,” Ramos says with a wink.

At the age of 80, Ramos still plays golf twice a week, reckons Ona.

“He walks and doesn’t use a cart.”

The self-giving goes beyond giving up a kidney because Ramos is a living testimony to Red Cross volunteerism, being a longtime blood donor.

“The former president was supposed to be here. He told me to tell everybody that having one kidney is not the issue but how we live our life,” Ona said during the forum.

http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideMetro.htm?f=2009/december/22/metro2.isx&d=/2009/december/22