When Rose Kwamboka turns three next month, she will not celebrate her birthday with a cake and blow out three candles. She will also not have her tot friends around to sing her, “Happy Birthday to You”, as she cuts the cake.
Instead, Kwamboka will be in a theater at the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) surrounded by a number of medical experts. She will make history by becoming the youngest patient to have a kidney transplant locally, before her; the youngest transplant patient was a five-year-old.
Kwamboka and her mother Janet Omurwa are already at the hospital in readiness for the operation.
Janet Omurwa holding her daughter Rose Kwamboke. Baby Kwamboka needs to get a kidney transplant. Picture: Kenfrey Kiberenge/Standard
Young Kwamboka cannot understand why her mother cannot allow her to get into a washbasin full of water and splash it around like she used to.
Spanish doctors
She is too young to know she was diagnosed with kidney failure last October. She has a catheter (tube) connected to her tummy for dialysis. Being a three-year-old child her blood is too little and she cannot use the dialysis machine for adults.
“Doctors told me if water enters the area where the catheter is connected pus might develop and it could be lethal,” said Janet.
Visiting hours at the hospital have turned a nightmare. As relatives leave, Kwamboka innocently raises her hands to be carried home.
“It pains me because she cannot understand why we cannot leave with other family members,” said Janet tearfully.
However, there is hope as Kwamboka has been selected as a beneficiary of a subsidised kidney transplant in March, where Kenyan and Spanish doctors will operate on ten patients at KNH.
Minimum age
“I am grateful to the hospital management for considering my child and giving her a new lease of life,” says Janet. Were it not for the KNH-Spain partnership, Kwamboka would have been forced to wait for two more years to attain the minimum age of five years, all this time depending on dialysis or take her child abroad for the transplant.
Kwamboka’s trouble started in August last year when she went upcountry in Kisii over the school holidays and was diagnosed with malaria at a private health facility.
Further examinations
“I took her to a private hospital where she was admitted and put on a drip of quinine and water. She was admitted for a week. At home she fell ill again and I took her back there and she was put back on quinine and water drips,” recalled Omurwa.
Kwamboka’s health, however, deteriorated and she was transferred to Kisii General Hospital where she had to use oxygen and feeding tubes. “When a pediatrician analysed her, it emerged that she had excess water in her body and that her sugar level had risen as a result of the drug drip. The liver, kidney and heart were swollen,” said Omurwa.
Further examinations established that her kidneys had failed. On October 17, Kwamboka was referred to KNH for specialised treatment. “They did another test and said her kidneys had failed completely,” she said.
Organ-matching tests
She was immediately put under dialysis, which costs Sh1, 200 per day. In addition, she has to be injected with two drugs every week at a subsidised cost of Sh2, 100.
Janet was disillusioned after doctors at KNH said Kwamboka had to wait for at least two years to attain the minimum age for a transplant.
But last week, a ray of hope appeared when a doctor informed her that her baby would benefit from the KNH-Spain partnership next month.
Janet, who was forced to stop operating her business to keep a 24-hour surveillance on Kwamboka, will be required to pay Sh300, 000 for the operation. She will then manage her at a monthly cost of Sh40, 000 for six months.
But before then, Janet has to foot the cost of organ-matching tests that will cost Sh200, 000. “I am the one who will donate one kidney to her but we are still doing the tests,” she said.
So far, Janet says she has spent up to Sh600, 000 – all from family and friends – to manage little Kwamboka’s health.
“Now we are planning a fundraising that will help me offset her bills. I wish to appeal to well wishers to assist and help me give her back her life,” said Janet. Those wishing to help can make contributions to Family Bank, Account no. 038000020858 or use M-Pesa number 0716 246 328 .
Besides Janet losing her source of livelihood, Kwamboka dropped out of baby day care.
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