Doctors' shoddy work costs youth
A kidney donated to Obakeng Kgosi by a Pakistan donor in Pakistan in August 2006 has since failed him five years after the operation. The kidney cost him P15000 and he had hoped it would save him from pain and the dreaded kidney dialysis procedure. Obakeng’s plea was first made public in 2006 when his family could not raise P350 000 needed for the operation in Pakistan.
The exposé led the nation to contribute thereby enabling the young man to travel to Pakistan where a successful kidney plant was carried out. On his return in September 2006, Kgosi lived a normal life and hoped for a better future without worrying about a failing kidney. In 2012 he informed The Midweek Sun that he felt something was not right with his kidney but could not find answers with local doctors.
He travelled to South Africa where a doctor told him that his doctors had failed to properly administer a dose whose purpose was for the kidney not to recognise that it was in a foreign body. “At first my world came crumbling on me as I knew that the kidney that a donor has given me has failed me once again. Instead of pointing fingers, I accepted myself and I miraculously got courage from the fact that I have lived with the condition for as long as I can remember. “I am currently undergoing kidney dialysis three times a week to clean my blood and rejuvenate my body.
My current fitness and oomph is as a result of acceptance of the situation and I strongly encourage those faced with my situation or anything worse than that to accept themselves in order to have a healthy life,” Kgosi said wearing a smile of bravery. A glance at his arms is not a good picture at all as they are scarred with weekly injections which he says he has got used to. He visits Nyangabgwe Hospital every week for a potassium injection. He is hoping to find another donor as the government has made arrangements to finance such an operation once a donor is found. Kgosi however, feels that it will take a miracle to find a donor since people are not willing to donate their body parts unlike in other countries. He disclosed that his donor should be a person between 25 and 35 years so that his kidney can have a long lifespan. As for those over 35 years (which donors he has found), he said that the kidney will have a very short lifespan.