HOPE for kidney patients, who have to travel to overseas countries at exorbitant cost, was raised yesterday with a successful kidney transplant at the Delta State University Teaching Hospital (DELSUTH), Oghara.

   State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan was among the team of doctors in the theatre during the operation. He had last year assured Deltans shortly after a watershed implantation that the medical feat in form of a kidney transplant would take place at the state-owned hospital this year.

  Coming on the heels of a hip-bone and knee cap replacement surgeries at the hospital, Uduaghan, who spoke with reporters at Oghara shortly after the successful operation, said that the latest rare feat was another medical breakthrough for the hospital.

  He said: “This is a happy day for me as we are able to provide this service,” the governor said, adding, “I know we were well prepared for this surgery and we also have a good post surgery team.”

  Against the backdrop of numerous patients who troop daily to the hospital with different ailments, the governor said that government was planning to expand bed facilities by putting up a 300-bed ward for the hospital and that the hospital had entered into a five-year partnership with UT South-Western Medical Centre, Dallas.

  Uduaghan said: “We have a five-year training agreement with them to build infrastructure and human capacity,” Uduaghan said about the medical team, stating, “what they will be charging here will be far lower than what obtains anywhere else in the world.” 

Continuing, he added, “about two years ago, we started subsidizing dialysis in this hospital and brought it down from N22,000 to N5, 000, a subsidy enjoyed only by Deltans.”

  Overwhelmed, the Chief Medical Director of DELSUTH, Dr. Leslie Akporiaye said the kidney transplant was a new innovation in the hospital, noting that the operation lasted a few hours.

Akporiaye said, “A lot of preparation has been done with the provision of necessary facilities, training and observation in Dallas and here in Oghara by staff of DELSUTH.”

   He added that this was the beginning of more of such surgeries that will take place in the hospital.