No surgeon’s fee for kidney transplants at private hospital

Apr 13, 2013 News

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With hospital care amounting to some US$20,000 ($4 million), patients are able to access kidney transplant operations at the Dr. Balwant Singh’s East Street, Georgetown, hospital through a voluntary medical mission led by renowned United States-based surgeon Dr. Rahul Jindal.

This collaboration has been ongoing for about three years now and is expected to remain a sustained venture, according to the private Hospital’s Administrator, Dr. Madhu Singh, who doubles as an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at the facility.
She explained, yesterday, that although hospital costs may seem sizeable it is far less than what would have been obtained had there been a surgeon fee, which is non-existent here and had there been a fee for the tissue matching which is required ahead of operations.  “When you are being considered as a donor (for a renal failure patient) you first have to have a blood group done and if your blood group matches that of the person who needs the kidney we send samples for tissue typing and matching. That is very important otherwise patients will reject the kidney…That is a very expensive test by itself and is done free of charge,” insisted Dr Singh.
The tissue matching process is carried out at the Walter Reed Medical Centre in Washington D.C. where Dr. Jindal practices.
Regarding the transplant operation as “two very major surgeries – where a kidney is taken out of one person and another is getting a kidney”, the Hospital Administration disclosed that the whole process can take as much as six hours to be completed.
Staffers of the Dr. Balwant Singh hospital are integrally involved both before and after the operations.
Donors, according to Dr Singh, would spend about three or four days in hospital while the recipient can spend double that period hospitalised following the operation. The hospital cost however does not vary but remains constant, according to Dr. Singh, who explained that it covers anaesthesia, all drugs used during that period and patient care.
A total of 15 kidney transplants have been facilitated in Guyana by Dr. Jindal, four of which were undertaken at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation and 11 at the Balwant Singh hospital.
Two of those were completed just last week when Dr. Jindal and his team visited. One of the patients operated on was from the British Virgin Islands and another was from Antigua. Reports are that the latter patient’s hospital cost was funded by the Government of Antigua.

At a press conference earlier this week, it was revealed that Dr. Jindal and a team of about six medical practitioners would usually come to facilitate operations about three to four times per year. At least two patients are operated on, on each occasion.
According to Dr. Jindal, while Guyanese patients are given priority treatment, “Recently, we started doing patients from other Caribbean Countries. This is the first time patients have come here to seek medical assistance.”
The most recent operation did not see any Guyanese being operated on. “It just happened that the local patients were not ready with their donors,” the surgeon said.
Last year the team did surgery on one Guyanese patient and according to Dr. Jindal he and his team are aiming to operate on eight patients this year.
When asked about the cost for the surgery during the press conference, he insisted that the patients “only have to pay the hospital a fee, nothing else.” After-care medication is supplied by the Guyana Government and this move, according to Dr. Singh, represents a “prime example of public/private cooperation.”
The overseas-based medical team’s travel and accommodation costs are all funded by United States-based philanthropist Mr. George Subraj. According to Subraj, a Guyanese by birth, he has been educated about renal failure and today is successful, and is in a position to give back to the land of his birth.
He explained that “a person’s health is all that matters and that is the reason for him supporting and financing the team of surgeons.”
According to Dr. Singh a great number of patients are suffering from renal failure which is often an end result of many medical conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes.
She noted, too, that these two conditions are very prevalent in Guyana adding that such patients in the past were either placed permanently on dialysis or nothing was done for them.
However with the support of the overseas-based renal team, transplants have since become one of the alternate services available to patients, said Dr. Singh.
This is however only possible for patients who have donors that are willing to give up a kidney.
“These are strictly voluntary donors …these are donors that are often close family members. Those who have a willing donor are able to benefit from this service that Dr. Jindal and Mr. George Subraj have been providing in Guyana.”
This forthcoming support, according to Dr Singh, has in fact helped to improve the service offered as the private hospital has been providing dialysis care to its patients over the years.
Moreover, she said that the intake of patients through the dialysis programme are the ones who are screened by Dr Jindal and identified as good candidates for kidney transplants.
Recently, Dr Jindal has been collaborating with a Nephrologist in Antigua who has been sending his patients to be attended at the Balwant Singh hospital and it was through this collaboration that the Antiguan patient was recently operated on.

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