Surgeons at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) New Brunswick currently perform about 60 to 70 kidney transplants a year. About 30 percent involve living donors.
Doctors at RWJUH say they’d like to see more procedures—upwards of 200—to meet the needs of the community.
Kidneys from living donors are ideal, says Advaith Bongu, MD, a transplant surgeon.
“Living donor kidneys work sooner and last longer,” he says. “It’s in patients’ best interest if they have somebody who’s willing to donate a kidney to them.”
Ronald Pelletier, MD, a transplant surgeon and Program Director at the Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Center at RWJUH, says he would love to see more eligible people volunteer to donate a kidney.
They must have two healthy kidneys, and they can’t have any diseases that might affect their kidney function in the future.
“There are great rewards for donating, especially when you get to see someone else’s life dramatically changed for the better,” says Dr. Pelletier. “With the incredible shortage of deceased donor kidneys, we need people interested in donating to step forward and try to help these people who are stuck on dialysis.”
For more information about the Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Center, visit www.njtransplant.org.