MONTEGO BAY, St James — With three kidney transplants successfully performed at the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) in Montego Bay recently, the administration is hoping that 12 more will be conducted by yearend.

“We would like to do another 12, but it all depends on when we get the resources together again and when we have found the patients and we have gotten the permission from the Ministry of Health to go again,” said Dr Curtis Yeates, Head of Internal Medicine at CRH.

Yeates, who was instrumental in getting the kidney transplant project up and running at the hospital, said there was a long waiting list.

“Cornwall Regional has one of the largest dialysis programmes in the Caribbean and so we have 170 patients on dialysis, but not all will be eligible, or fit for transplant, but a significant amount will be, so we have a large pool waiting for transplant,” he told the Jamaica Observer West.

Through collaboration with the United Kingdom-based Transplant Links Community (TLC), three kidney transplants — two males and one female — were performed at the CRH recently, with surgeons from both the CRH and TLC participating.

The donors were all females.

Formed seven years ago, TLC is a charity organisation with the primary objective of improving medical skills in developing countries, and saving lives through kidney transplants.

The group has worked in several countries, including Trinidad and Tobago, Ghana, Nigeria, Nepal

and Egypt.

TLC’s CEO Jennie Jewitt-Harris told the Observer West that her team decided to collaborate with the CRH in conducting the surgeries after they were contacted by Dr Yeates.

“We have been working in a variety of countries trying to help with transplant skills and we are aware that Jamaica needs a transplant programme and we have a long- standing relationship with Dr Curtis Yeates who was trained in the UK some years ago, and he told us about his desire to set up a programme in Montego Bay and so that’s how it all started,” Jewitt-Harris explained.

Describing the recent transplantation at CRH “as a tremendous success,” Jewitt-Harris commended the staff at the CRH for their skill and professionalism.

“This hospital has a lot going for it. There are many talented people here. The surgeons are very talented and Dr Yeates has strong leadership skills, let alone his fantastic clinical skills. His leadership skills are something that is quite rare and quite special,” she said.

Kidney replacement is both cost-effective and designed to improve and increase a patient’s life expectancy, when compared to being regularly dialysed.

It is estimated that the cost for dialysing each patient runs in the region of $1.2 million annually.

The eight-member TLC team’s stay in Jamaica was sponsored by Sandals Resorts International.

— Mark Cummings