AIDS with kidney

It happened at the beginning of August last year. Another kidney transplant operation was performed at the Sverdlovsk Regional Clinical Hospital # 1. The patient was completely dependent on the artificial kidney machine for a long time. Moreover, things were so bad that when a donor organ finally appeared, the doctors did not wait for a written document confirming the test results, but were satisfied with a telephone conversation and immediately began the operation. When it was completed, the results of the tests arrived in time: the donor turned out to be HIV-positive.

The first days and hours after the incident were extremely difficult. In order for the donor kidney not to start being rejected, the patient needed drugs that dampen the activity of the immune system, and in order to prevent the virus from "running around" - just the opposite. After a few days, it became apparent that the transplanted kidney had taken root. Doctors began to conduct active therapy, in parallel with the recipient, a psychologist worked incessantly, who tried to help the patient cope with stress.

In the meantime, information about the donor's HIV infection was transferred to the Russian Ministry of Health, from where a commission arrived to analyze the causes of the incident together with Yekaterinburg doctors. As a result, the surgeon who performed the operation was demoted, and the regional commission for licensing and accreditation of healthcare institutions suspended the license of OKB # 1 for organ and tissue transplantation for three months.

The most amazing thing is that those three hundred patients of the hospital who were on the waiting list for a kidney transplant were deeply outraged not by the mistake of the doctors, but by the fact that their operations were postponed indefinitely. “Without a new kidney, I have nothing left to live, but with HIV, you can stretch ten years,” said one of them.

Now the license to the medical institution has been returned and transplantation operations have been resumed. A twelve-year-old girl was operated on, for whom her mother provided a kidney.

And what about the situation with a patient infected with HIV due to the negligence of doctors? OKB #1 has committed itself to providing him with highly effective drugs and treatment for as long as necessary. At the moment, his condition is good, he was discharged home and for the first time in many years leads a full life.

HIV kidney - Channel Four - news, 08/23/2000

Transplantology in Russian - Runet.com, 10/23/2000