KORLE BU DOES IT AGAIN (NOVEMBER 10, 2008)

MANY people yesterday heaved a sigh of relief at the news that the country’s premier hospital, the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, had performed the first kidney transplant in the history of medical practice in Ghana.
The reports said an 11-member team from the Birmingham University Hospital, with support from Transplant Links in the United Kingdom, assisted their Ghanaian counterparts to undertake the kidney transplant on a 24-year-old man.
This medical feat also brought to the fore the large number of people in need of kidney transplant in the country. More than 200 Ghanaians throughout the country need kidney transplant, some of whom have had to depend on renal dialysis to survive. A dialysis costs 100 euros per session and kidney patients require three sessions of dialysis a week.
The DAILY GRAPHIC commends all those whose efforts led to that medical intervention to offer relief to people suffering from renal failure.
The fatality rates resulting from kidney failure are not readily available but if renal failure accounts for 10 per cent of medical admissions at Korle-Bu, then the kidney failure challenge is legion.
It appears that extra support for our national health system can lead to major savings in the healthcare budget as treatment for most deadly diseases can be done by our doctors, with international collaboration.
Under the programme, the team will visit Ghana three times next year and the collaboration will continue until a fully trained Ghanaian team has been put in place within two years to undertake the transplant on its own.
Until recently, heart patients had had to seek medical treatment abroad until Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, an internationally acclaimed heart surgeon, braved all odds and established the National Cardiothoracic Centre.
It was not easy to convince the authorities to buy into the idea to establish the Cardiothoracic Centre at Korle-Bu, but Prof. Frimpong-Boateng persisted and today the centre has become famous in the entire sub-region for the treatment of heart diseases.
As a developing nation, it will not be easy to satisfy the requests from all sectors of the economy because of competition for scarce resources.
Be that as it may, the onus rests on the government to prioritise its activities in order to allocate a substantial portion of national revenue to cater for the health needs of the people to give expression to the dictum of “a healthy mind in a healthy body.”
The DAILY GRAPHIC considers the kidney transplant breakthrough as a source of great joy and hope to those suffering from renal failure. The nation has lost many of its skilled and unskilled manpower through kidney failure and the transplant, although expensive, offers a ray of hope to those with kidney problems.
We call on the government to support all our teaching hospitals with the necessary equipment to provide treatment for the illnesses that afflict our people for which treatment can only be accessed abroad.
Let this feat not be a nine days’ wonder and dash the hopes of many people with kidney problems. The Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital has shown the way as a centre of excellence in Ghana and beyond.
The DAILY GRAPHIC, therefore, urges all Ghanaians to demonstrate their benevolence towards the Kidney Foundation so that all those in the queue for kidney transplant can be saved.