Nine-year-old waits for kidney

KOLKATA: For nine-year-old Sunaina Khatoon, time is running out. Born with just one kidney that has stopped functioning, the girl from Metiabruz needs a renal transplant to survive. Dialysis has kept Sunaiya alive, but it won’t work for her for too long, according to doctors at a city hospital where she has been under treatment since March 12. But without the resources to even support her dialysis, Sunaiya’s family doesn’t know how to fund her transplant that might cost Rs 3 lakh.
Sunaina had been gasping for breath and her oxygen saturations were low when she was admitted to the CMRI Hospital last month. Her pulse could not be felt and she was put on ventilation. Following an adrenaline infusion to maintain blood pressure, Sunaiya was transferred to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) where she steadily improved over the next three weeks.
Her blood tests showed evidences of severe renal failure and gross acidosis, along with anaemia, according to Sushmita Banerjee, paediatrician at CMRI. “She had a severe infection in the kidney which could be fatal since she doesn’t have a second kidney. The infection might have been triggered by some other congenital malfunctioning in her system, which is common among people born without organs. What made it worse was the fact that her kidney had several abscesses and one had ruptured and formed a collection around the kidney,” said Sushmita.
The next three days were stormy and she required continued ventilation and blood pressure support. She was on broad spectrum antibiotics. A daily slow but long process of hemo-dialysis (called SLED) was started as she was not in a position to accept conventional dialysis. With this, she improved and came off the ventilator on the fourth day. Dialysis was then changed to conventional hemodialysis. After stabilization, pus was drained out from her kidney.
Sunaina was discharged after two weeks of hospital stay. Her biochemical parameters have improved and she is fit to move about. But other than medicines, Sunaiya has to undergo dialysis thrice a week. This must continue for the next 4-6 months, the minimum period that is required to arrange for a kidney transplant. “Kidney transplantation is the ideal form of treatment for children with severe renal failure, and the technology and infrastructure for this is available to us. But the cost of the procedure and of the long term anti-rejection medicines is prohibitive. For us doctors, it’s frustrating that even though we have saved her life, Sunaiya won’t survive without a transplant for which her treatment should continue for the next six months, at least,” said Sushmita.
Each dialysis session costs Rs 2000, which brings the total monthly expenditure on her treatment to Rs 24,000. They could soon be forced to stop her treatment, fears her family. “We have been finding it difficult to keep her dialysis going. Honestly, I have no idea how much the transplant could cost. So far, we have not been promised any help from any quarter. She needs the transplant to live but we don’t know where the money will come from,” said uncle Mohammed Moinuddin Mir.
“We are happy that Sunaina has made it through the crisis under the care of our expert clinical team. However, we want the treatment to continue and are looking at different avenues,” said Jashodhara Ghosh, vice-president, CMRI.