University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, UMTH, has successfully performed its second living-donor kidney transplant, 15 years after the first one.
The Chief Medical Director of the UMTH, Prof. Ahmed Ahidjo, made this known at a news conference on Wednesday in Maiduguri.
“This is not the first time UMTH is doing the transplant. The first time UMTH conducted a kidney transplant was in August 2010 and now the hospital has come back with full force to resume the exercise,” he said.
Mr Ahidjo also announced that already, 20 patients admitted were awaiting surgery on the same kidney transplant.
He appealed to donors to contribute funds to support poor patients who needed the surgery so dearly.
The CMD said that the hospital provided free services, being a federal government facility, while the patient’s dialysis had been subsidised by reducing everything to N12,000, which was less than eight dollars, compared with 1,000 dollars charged for same dialysis elsewhere.
Mr Ahidjo said that the target was to make the transplant one of the cheapest in West Africa.
He said their facility was the largest in the country, with a capacity to accommodate up to 85 patients at once.
“UMTH has four fully equipped theatre rooms, all for kidney transplant, which are fully equipped with modern equipment,” the CMD said.
He commended TETFUND for its support to the hospital in terms of equipment and other infrastructure.
Mr Ahidjo also commended Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno for donating N50 million to the hospital to carry out research on causes of kidney-related diseases in the North-East.
The CMD said that some of the research findings linked diabetes, hypertension and dehydration with the kidney diseases in the region.
NAN
