Doctors have started kidney transplant procedure on Prime Minister (PM) KP Sharma Oli at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) on Wednesday.
A team led by head of the kidney transplant department at the hospital Dr Prem Raj Gyawali will carry out the procedure which will take a few hours.
This is the second kidney transplant for Oli with the first done at the Apollo Hospital in New Delhi 12 years ago. The TUTH has a success rate of 98 percent in kidney transplants.
A woman, niece in relation, will donate kidney to Oli. Anjana Ghimire, daughter-in-law in relation, had donated the kidney that was transplanted on Oli 12 years ago. She was just 21 years while donating the kidney.
Oli will have four kidneys in his body after the second transplant including two of his own, one transplanted 12 years back and the new one, according to Dr Gyawali. "It is risky to take out earlier kidneys as another surgery needs to be performed. We, therefore, leave the previous ones inside the body," he explained.
He said the new kidney is generally kept a little below the old ones in the abdomen and the previous kidneys are not taken out across the globe.
The earlier kidneys are taken out only if they get infected or create some problems, according to him.
Cabinet ministers, and other CPN leaders and cadres have reached the TUTH for Oli's surgery.
Oli was on regular dialysis in recent times after the transplanted kidney stopped functioning. He underwent plasmapheresis seven times in Singapore in August 2019.
Plasmapheresis is a term used to refer to a broad range of procedures through which blood components are filtered outside the body. It was done on PM Oli, who had a kidney transplant 12 years ago, to remove antibodies for immunosuppression.
