If you or someone you know is a candidate for a kidney transplant and lives outside of Vancouver, you will learn in the lead-up that a stay of at least a couple of months in the big city will be necessary after surgery.
And with the cost of accommodations being what they are in the big smoke, well, you might have questions.
You should know, then, that there are kidney suites available in Vancouver . . .
The Kidney Foundation of Canada, BC & Yukon Branch offers seven kidney suites within Vancouver. These are for post-kidney-transplant recipients who have come to Vancouver from outside the Lower Mainland and need to stay in town for up to two months after surgery. These suites are fully furnished, and are located near major transit lines.
These suites are free for those who meet our financial criteria (low income) and just $35 per night for those who do not.
There is more right here.
If you happen to live in Kamloops and area, you may be wondering about the next gatherings of the Kamloops Kidney Support Group (KKSG). . . . We get together on the second Wednesday and second Saturday of every month. In September, that will be Sept. 11, 10 a.m., and Sept. 14, 9 a.m. . . . All coffee drinking and eating of eggs takes place at the Barside Lounge and Grill at Chances Casino, 1250 Halston Ave. . . . Believe me when I say that these gatherings are informal.
SOME ODDS AND ENDS . . .
One in 10 Canadians live with kidney disease or are at risk – most are unaware of this. . . .
You can lose up to 80 per cent of your kidney function before experiencing symptoms. . . .
As of mid-August, in the region served by Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, there were 1,378 patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) being monitored by nephrologists. Of those, 140 have undergone transplants, and 114 are on dialysis. . . .
As of December 2018, there were 665 people in B.C. waiting for organ transplants, with 528 of those being kidney patients. In 2018, 335 kidney transplants were performed in B.C.
Some numbers from a piece by the editorial board of The New York Times from earlier this week:
About 20 Americans die each week waiting for organs. . . .
More than 100,000 people in the United States are currently waiting for organs, and only about 35,000 will receive them in 2019. . . .
That piece also included this:
“Far too few people are donating organs to begin with, and far too few of the organs that have been donated are making their way to patients in waiting. Experts say that misconceptions about donor eligibility requirements and, in some states, cumbersome registration processes are preventing nearly half of those who support organ donation from becoming registered donors. Outdated standards are causing transplant surgeons to reject some 75,000 usable organs every year, according to a Washington Post analysis. And an astounding lack of accountability and oversight in the nation’s creaking, monopolistic organ transplant system is allowing hundreds of thousands of potential organ donations to fall through the cracks.”
The complete piece is right here and it’s well worth your time if you are interesting in the American transplantation system.
TAKING NOTE 