82-Year-Old Great-Grandmother Is South-East Asia's Oldest Kidney Donor

[Karol]

82-Year-Old Great-Grandmother Is South-East Asia's Oldest Kidney Donor

Published on Thursday, 30 April 2015 15:33


When Simah Empaling saw her 50-year-old daughter, Ibi Uding, practically giving up on life when she was told both her kidneys had failed, she did what any mother would have done, offer one of her kidneys to her daughter.

Ibi was diagnosed with polycystic kidneys in 2012 and was depending entirely on dialysis to keep her alive by 2013, as reported by a local news daily.

Although Ibi's church group members back in Kuching, Sarawak had offered to donate their kidneys but organ-transplants from live donors who are not related to the organ recipient is not allowed in Malaysia.

When Ibi's husband was found to be unsuitable as a donor as well, her mother stepped in.

"When my mother saw me on dialysis, she broke down and said she could not see her child die before her," said Ibi.

Surprisingly, doctors found the 82-year-old grandmother of 25 and great-grandmother of 10 to be in great shape and fit enough to give up one of her kidneys to her daughter. Simah had spent her life toiling as a padi farmer and rubber tapper.

Today, two years after the organ transplant, both mother and daughter are in great shape as reported in the video recording posted to Youtube yesterday.

In a follow-up consultation and interview with nephrologist Prof Datuk Dr Tan Si Yen, he noted that Simah's kidney functioned in its new home inside Ibi like that of someone half her age.

"Now, I want to rear 110 goats in our rubber plantation," said the enterprising Ibi, an Iban from the Merakai longhouse in Serian, who runs a cleaning business together with her husband.

Dr Tan noted that the success rate involving living related donated kidneys was better than cadeveric donors, and on average, they could last more than 20 years, with the world record currently at 48 years. He highlighted that in organ donation, age of the donor no longer poses a barrier if the organ in question is found to be healthy.

In January this year, DailyExpress reported that an 85-year-old woman from UK became the world's oldest organ donor when she donated her kidney to a total stranger last year, a practice which is allowed in Britain.

The generous pensioner who wanted to remain anonymous, now 86 and fully recovered, was quoted as saying: "Why do I need two kidneys to sit at home knitting and watching television?"

http://www.malaysiandigest.com/frontpage/29-4-tile/551887-82-year-old-great-grandmother-is-south-east-asia-s-oldest-kidney-donor.html