Joel Julien

When Pa­tri­cia Quam­mie first heard that her kid­neys were fail­ing and that she was in ur­gent need of dial­y­sis to stay alive she fell in­to a trance.

“I kept think­ing to­day I am a nor­mal per­son but to­mor­row I can on­ly sur­vive through a ma­chine,” Quam­mie told Guardian Me­dia. That day was 27 years ago. Quam­mie at that time was a moth­er of three. Her youngest, Tian­na, was a tod­dler while her el­dest Tynisa was a teenag­er prepar­ing for her CXC ex­am. Quam­mie’s jour­ney to that life-chang­ing di­ag­no­sis be­gan a cou­ple of weeks ear­li­er when she be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a throb­bing headache.

On that Fri­day Quam­mie went to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal to seek med­ical at­ten­tion. She left the hos­pi­tal feel­ing bet­ter but on Sun­day the headache re­turned even worse. Every­thing she ate she threw up. She was los­ing weight rapid­ly. “I was look­ing like death. I was re­al­ly a mess,” Quam­mie said.

Quam­mie’s younger broth­er Pe­ter con­cerned about her health took her to Dr Tele­maque.

Dr Tele­maque felt her kid­neys were the source of her med­ical prob­lem and re­ferred her to spe­cial­ist Dr Poon King. Poon King con­firmed the sit­u­a­tion.

Quam­mie re­mem­bers hav­ing an out of body ex­pe­ri­ence see­ing Dr Poon King ex­plain the sever­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion to Pe­ter. For ten years Quam­mie un­der­went dial­y­sis twice a week. Pe­ter helped pay for the treat­ment.

It was the best op­tion at the time as the fam­i­ly could not af­ford the US$250,000 bill for the trans­plant she re­al­ly need­ed.

But then, in 2006, the op­tion for a trans­plant done lo­cal­ly at the pub­lic hos­pi­tal was pre­sent­ed to Quam­mie.

Pe­ter stepped up to the plate and of­fered to give her one of his kid­neys. He passed all of the tests to con­firm his com­pat­i­bil­i­ty.

The trans­plant was sched­uled for Jan­u­ary of that year but a gland is­sue caused the surgery to be post­poned.

A surgery in May to cor­rect the gland is­sue meant the trans­plant card­ed for June would al­so have to be post­poned.

Even­tu­al­ly, it was the third time’s the charm for Quam­mie. On Sep­tem­ber 20, 2006, the trans­plant was done and it was a suc­cess.

This year Quam­mie cel­e­brates 15 years since that surgery. “Kid­ney dis­ease does not have to be a death sen­tence.”

She is now a grand­moth­er and with­out the trans­plant, she be­lieves this would not have been pos­si­ble.

“I don’t know if I will live or die. My life is in God’s hands,” she said.

She takes tablets dai­ly and has had to make ad­just­ments to her di­et but Quam­mie said she is liv­ing well.

To­day we cel­e­brate World Kid­ney Day 2021. The theme for this year’s cel­e­bra­tion is “Liv­ing Well with Kid­ney Dis­ease.” The aim is to en­cour­age life par­tic­i­pa­tion through pa­tient em­pow­er­ment by in­creas­ing ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness. The fo­cus on kid­ney health has ex­pand­ed be­yond dis­ease pre­ven­tion and man­age­ment and now in­cludes em­pow­er­ing pa­tients and care-part­ners to re­duce the bur­den of chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease-re­lat­ed (CKD) symp­toms.

In T&T there are more than 1,000 peo­ple who re­ceive dial­y­sis to treat CKD with 80-90 new pa­tients added an­nu­al­ly. It’s the fourth lead­ing cause of death in T&T.

Ad­vo­ca­cy for Kid­ney Health

The Kid­ney Re­cip­i­ent Sup­port Group of T&T is a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion ded­i­cat­ed to the pro­mo­tion of kid­ney health and aware­ness of kid­ney dis­ease and or­gan do­na­tion in T&T.

The group com­pris­es or­gan donors and re­cip­i­ents, pa­tients await­ing kid­ney trans­plants and sup­port­ers.

The group as­sists in com­mu­ni­ty out­reach pro­grammes to cre­ate aware­ness. In 2019, they part­nered with Rep­sol with the “Be­come a Donor Ed­u­ca­tion­al Sym­po­sium” to cre­ate aware­ness and ed­u­cate sec­ondary school stu­dents on kid­ney dis­ease and dif­fer­ent modes of treat­ment with a fo­cus on or­gan do­na­tion.

The group’s main event to pro­mote kid­ney and donor aware­ness is the An­nu­al Walk-a-thon and Health Fair host­ed on the Sun­day af­ter World Kid­ney Day. This will not be held this year, how­ev­er, be­cause of the COVID pan­dem­ic.

Na­tion­al Or­gan

Trans­plant Unit

The Na­tion­al Or­gan Trans­plant Unit (NO­TU) was es­tab­lished in 2006 and is re­spon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing con­tin­u­ous, com­pre­hen­sive and state of the art sur­gi­cal sup­port to the Na­tion­al Re­nal Pro­gramme.

Since the in­cep­tion of the or­gan do­na­tion pro­gramme, 195 or­gans were trans­plant­ed from both liv­ing and de­ceased donors.

Or­gan do­na­tion re­mains the gold-stan­dard for all end-or­gan fail­ures and pro­vides the re­cip­i­ents with an im­proved qual­i­ty of life.

The gift­ing of one’s or­gans and tis­sue, to pa­tients in need, re­mains a high­ly-un­der­stat­ed sac­ri­fice. We en­cour­age every­one to con­sid­er be­ing a donor, ei­ther liv­ing or de­ceased. Be some­one’s hero.

Fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on re­fer­ring po­ten­tial re­cip­i­ents or reg­is­ter­ing to be an or­gan/tis­sue donor can be ob­tained us­ing 663-7663/1703 or email­ing NO­TU at no­tu@health.gov.tt.