By NATION REPORTER
A team of six doctors from Zambia is in India to conduct kidney transplant at KIMS Hospital on three Zambian patients as part of the skills transfer initiative for medical personnel by Government.
The initiative, which is fully sponsored by the Zambian Government, is part of the implementation of a long term engagement through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Zambia and India.
The team of doctors which consists a renal physician, kidney specialist, urologist, anaesthetist, critical care consultant, and an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurse, arrived in India on Thursday night to join the three patients, donors, and caregivers ahead of the kidney transplant scheduled for this week.
Zambia High Commission Counsellor (Health) Victor Mukonka says Government wants Zambian doctors to perform kidney transplants in close collaboration with experts from India as part of skills transfer and that the idea is to set up Centres of Excellence in Zambia so that such surgeries can be done locally.
Prof. Mukonka says this is aimed at ensuring that a lot of Zambians access these services locally as this will reduce on the cost of evacuating patients to India.
“We travelled with the patients to ensure that they are settled. We also received the doctors and engaged them with their counterparts at KIMS hospital and the process has started. Right now, preliminary tests and investigations are being done. After that, we go into the phase for operations and then the recovery period.
“The fact that the doctors came with their patients is very good because they are part of the care for the patients here and back home. We commend Government for funding this very important initiative which will develop the capacity at home,” Prof. Mukonka said.
He says the next step is to take the cancer team to India and link the Cancer Hospital in Zambia to similar facilities in India as part of capacity building.
And speaking on behalf of other patients, Charity Mambwe thanked Government for not only facilitating their evacuation, but ensuring that they travelled with doctors from Zambia.
“We are grateful to the Government. It is the first time that we have travelled with doctors and we feel so comfortable that we are in safe hands. We feel like we are back home.
“We found Prof. Mukonka who is excellent and travelled with us to Hyderabad and made sure that we are all settled. We are doing the whole procedure of tests and we can’t wait to do what we came here for. We are so grateful to the Government for the support,” Ms. Mambwe said.
This is contained in a statement issued by Bennie Mundando, First Secretary (Press) at the Zambia High Commission in New Delhi, India.
