Acute Kidney (Renal) Failure

Good morning!

I’m Dr. Sunil Prakash. I’m director and head of nephrology of renal transplant services at BLK super specialty hospital, New Delhi.

Today I would like to share with you some newer things that are happening on nephrology. You all know that if somebody has a kidney failure they will eventually land up on dialysis. Dialysis is of 2 types: peritoneal dialysis which is done at home by person themselves or your relatives. It is also called colo-colic or water dialysis. Another is blood dialysis. This can also be done at home which is called home hemodialysis and there are simple machines which are available and there are people who can be trained who can come at home and do dialysis for such patients. Or these patients come to hospitals or dialysis centers for regular dialysis. Dialysis is normally give it to 2-3 times a week. Itis certainly a cumbersome procedure and it is also costing money. But at the end of the day the decision is either dialysis or death. So if somebody reaches the end stage kidney disease then he/she will require dialysis. The other option is to go for kidney transplant. The biggest problem of kidney transplant is how to get donors? How to get kidneys? Now friends everybody has 2kidneys. And if somebody is healthy and he doesn’t have diabetes, blood pressure or stone in the kidney and he is leading a good healthy life then by doing some test it can be found that person may be able to live on one kidney. So if we are certain that a donor if he can give one kidney to its relative to make him rehabilitate then he can live on one kidney and the recipient or the patient who gets the kidney will live on another kidney. This is called life-related donor program. This is a legal program. Now what is not legal? What is totally illegal is when somebody tries to buy kidneys for poor people by force or money or greed or whatever. This is illegal act and it is punishable by law. Another thing in transplant which we must encourage and our country is lacking very badly is deceased donor transplant. What is deceased donor transplant? It means unfortunately if somebody gets an accident. Young person leaves his house on bike or going for a job or something meets with the accident sometimes if the brain is irreversibly damaged but the organs like heart kidney and liver are functioning well these are called brain death patients. They are basically cadavers. Cadavers means death although technically, legally they are living at that point of time because there heart is beating but if somebody’s brain is death then that person ceases to be that person. And certainly within a day the all organs will also stop functioning because their master is gone the command center is gone. And all the organs of the body requires impulses from brain to survive. So now in such a situation a person’s heart is beating but it is certain to die in next 6-8-10 or maximum24 hours. So in this interim the organs of the patients are taken out and give it to people who are waiting on the organ list to be able to get these organs and get rehabilitated. In Spain the rate of donation is 50/million. In India it is 0.5/million. So we can very well imagine that how much organ shortage we are having and Indians or top of it have more proclivity of having kidney diseases and end stage kidney stages. So we badly needs these kidneys. So I request to all my listeners that let us join hands, let us do more social work, advertise and tell people that unfortunately if somebody has got brain damage then he/she is about to die then they must pledge their organs to people who are waiting below. Nothing can be better than this act of altruism and donation. Friends let us not take our organs to heaven because heaven knows that we need these organs here. Thank you for your time. I’m available at BLK super specialty hospital. For any issues, consulting dialysis refers to blood pressure and transplantation center.

Thank you! Again.