KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A woman in Wichita, Kansas, is holding out for a second chance at life.
Gina Monarez has been on the kidney transplant waiting list for three years and currently spends 12 hours a week doing hemodialysis treatments.
Monarez always knew her family had a history of kidney disease, but it was not until 2014 that it affected the reality of her life. She went in for a check-up before her shoulder surgery and was recommended by her doctor to see a nephrologist.
Over the years, her kidney function worsened, and she started peritoneal dialysis in August 2021.
“It was a total surprise because you know, you don’t feel sick,” Monarez said.
She responded well to her treatments over the years until three weeks ago. She was quickly put on hemodialysis, where blood is pumped out of the body to an artificial kidney machine and returned to the body through tubes.
“Really you get the freedom of time, because right now, time is limited,” Monarez said.
She says time is of the essence as she has years of her life left to live. COVID-19 has added additional pressures and barriers to her immunocompromised state as well.
“If I happen to get COVID or be exposed, and they call that day and say, ‘Hey, we have a transplant for you,’ then you can’t get it,” Monarez said.
Dr. Lee Cummings, the surgical director of kidney transplant patients at St. Luke’s Hospital, says getting on and off the waiting list is often guided by public bias, something Monarez saw first-hand.
“It’s really like you almost have to market yourself to try to … you have to go out there on your own to try to find your own donor. Tell your story. And it’s hard because it’s personal,” Monarez said.
Other disparities of the system may be financial or even geographical. For example, the average wait time for a transplant in the Kansas City area is two to four years while it may be close to 10 years in parts of California. This is due to three reasons.
“The efficiency of the organ bank is probably top, the willingness to donate of the families and patients and thirdly, the increased number of donors who died a particular way,” Cummings said.
Cummings says more than 107,000 people are on the waiting list at all times with 85% of them in need of a new kidney. With not enough donors, 17 people die each day waiting for a transplant.
“We are an opt-in country, meaning you have to opt in to become a donor," Cummings said. "Whereas in other countries, it’s opt-out. So that naturally puts us at somewhat of a disadvantage in terms of getting organs."
For anyone who decides to become an organ donor, the cost of testing and the procedure itself will be covered by the insurance of the organ recipient.
Cummings says the success rate of organ transplants is very high and poses no great danger to the donor.
