Chain of compassion: Israeli and Cypriot doctors unite for marathon of kidney transplants

All the transplants went well, and the patients are recovering.

By Anna Epshtein, TPS

In a carefully coordinated chain of surgeries, Israeli and Cypriot doctors performed eight kidney transplants in a day-long marathon of life-saving procedures, Israeli medical officials announced on Wednesday.

In all, five Israelis and three Cypriot citizens received a new kidney on Monday.

“In Israel, we all are kind of relatives, and it makes the chance of the presence of the antibodies in the organs of possible donors and recipients higher,” Dr. Tamar Ashkenazi, director of the Israel National Transplant Center, told The Press Service of Israel.

“Israel has agreements with Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Austria, and the Emirates, which means we share information with them about possible donors and recipients. Anytime a patient in Israel is found to be compatible with a kidney from a donor in any of these countries, a computer system starts to look for the ‘pair’ transplant, where an Israeli donor can donate a kidney to a recipient in this country. If there is a match, we start the procedures,” she explained.

“You can’t transplant an organ if the recipient has antibodies to it, it’s too risky. In this case, looking for transplants abroad can help,” Ashkenazi added.

To make Monday’s transplant marathon possible, five people in Israel and three more in Cyprus donated their kidneys to the people they never met.

While most of the donors were relatives of patients needing a transplant, for reasons of compatibility, none were able to directly donate to their loved ones.

Instead, each kidney was donated to a compatible recipient. None of the donors or recipients ever met each other.

Thus, on Monday, a patient at the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva received a kidney from a woman in Cyprus.

At the same time, the Cypriot donor’s husband in Nicosia received a kidney from another Israeli man — whose wife in turn received a kidney from an altruistic Israeli donor.

An altruistic donor refers to someone who donates an organ out of a desire to help others and is not from a need to help a relative or friend.

To close the circle, the mother of the original patient at the Rabin Medical Center then donated a kidney to a man at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.

Extending the Chain

That should have been the end of the story. But the Israeli doctors decided to seize a new opportunity.

Two more kidneys were found available in Cyprus that could be brought on the same flight.

So two more men in Hadassah, as well as another woman and man in the Nicosia General Hospital in Cyprus received transplants on the same day.

“We always hire a private jet to bring the organs, because it lives only a short amount of time,” Ashkenazi told TPS-IL.

That second part of the chain, however, was only made possible by a second altruistic Israeli kidney donor, 45-year-old Yaara Ashhar Shir of Jerusalem.

Shir’s father, brother and cousin had been kidney donors before her. The cousin, Naaran Ashhar, donated a kidney during the summer of 2023.

The surgery disqualified him from reserve duty after Hamas’s October 7 attacks, but the 32-year-old insisted on joining his tank brigade.

Naaran was killed in November when his tank overturned in an accident near the Lebanese border.

“I have been considering donating a kidney for a long time, and when my cousin was killed in November, I realized that it was the right time for me. It is important to me that those who contemplate this idea would understand that it is practical and possible. You can do this,” Yaara said.

“Just as it was clear to me that my partner goes into reserve duty because the country needs to be protected, so it was clear to me that I would donate a kidney to save a life.”

Ashkenazi said all the transplants went well, and the patients are recovering.