Medical Tourism – The Road Ahead

Betty was an Anglo-Saxon Canadian lady who was on 42 and on hemo-dialysis for twelve years. She first had treatment at Toronto and then moved on to Montreal after she got employment in a local school. She was young and getting very frustrated being on dialysis three times a week. She had been on the transplant waiting list for many years and should have got a couple of kidneys in that period of waiting. However every time she was called it was found that her cross-match was positive. She also had a rare blood group (AB positive). As she had had multiple blood transfusions, this had resulted in a very high level of antibodies developing in her system. This meant that the chances of a transplanted kidney getting immediately rejected were very high. She then spoke to a few doctors and her well wishers and someone suggested that maybe the solution was to try and get a kidney from a patient from another race. Immediately she thought of countries like Hong Kong, China and India. She contacted Sri Ramachandra Hospital and was told that they did not do any unrelated transplants, however if she was interested she could go on a cadaver transplant list provided there were no Indian patients waiting for AB kidney.

Betty was not keen to indulge in purchasing a kidney from a stranger and having waited for a kidney for many years in Canada she did not mind waiting for sometime in India to get a cadaver kidney. She traveled to India and got admitted to the hospital and was started her hemo-dialysis.

As luck would have it for her, 3 weeks after her arrival and waiting, AB cadaver donor was available in the hospital and there was only one Indian patient on the waiting list hence there was a possibility that the second kidney could be given to her provided her cross match was not positive. However as a precaution multiple special hemo-dialysis was done to extract some of her antibodies and the cross match results were awaited with donor’s blood.

The cross match was weakly positive. She was told this however Betty said she would take her chance and go for the transplant. Her transplant was successful and within a couple of weeks she made remarkable progress and within a month after her transplant she flew back to Canada with her brother who had accompanied her for the surgery.