B-Positive in Australia

[Bramwell]

Hi,

I'm a B-Positive male in my late 20's.  I have some interest in donating my kidney to help someone while in Australia early next year.  Can anyone point me in the right direction to make this interest a reality?  Thanks.

[Fr Pat]

Here are two sites that you may find helpful:
www.donatelife.gov.au
www.kidney.org.au

      Please let us know how things work out. Take it a step at a time, and keep getting well informed about living donation (and its risks).
     best wishes,
   Fr. Pat (donor, 2002)

[Bramwell]

Thanks for those helpful links.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to find where to locate recipients (with my blood type) on the sites, however.  Is there a specific location I go to for that info?

Thanks in advance.

[Fr Pat]

     I'm in the U.S., so I don't know how it works in Australia. Generally in the U.S. if you wish to donate a kidney and do not have a particular recipient in mind it is the hospital or donation program that selects your recipient. Through www.kidneyregistry.org they would try to match you with a recipient who has a willing but non-compatible donor. You donate to that patient, and then that patient's incompatible donor donates to someone else chosen by the program. Again that "someone else" is another patient with a willing but incompatible donor who passes along a kidney to the next patient. So the initial "non-directed" donor sets off a chain of many otherwise impossible transplants. I don't know if they have this sort of thing in Australia.
     If a donor has nobody in particular in mind but wishes to choose their recipient they usually have to do this on their own. I believe there are facebook pages devoted to such matches. Also www.matchingdonors.com (.org?) lets potential donors and recipients post there and find each other, but I believe they charge a fee. At www.livingdonorsonline.org there is a "looking for" section where patient post there need for a kidney (no Fee for posting.)
     I hope this information is helpful.
Fr. Pat
     Since you are "B+" your blood type is compatible to donate a kidney to another "B+" or to a "B-" or to an "AB+" or to an "AB-". But individual tissue matching with the particular recipient is also required.