Kidney transplant surgery will be free of charge for 50 Kyrgyzstanis. Health Minister of Kyrgyzstan Alymkadyr Beishenaliev told 24.kg news agency.
The president and the government are allocating money for this, he said. The surgeries will be performed at two medical institutions — the National Center for Maternal and Child Welfare and the Kyrgyz-Turkish Friendship Hospital.
When asked who would be on the list of 50 citizens, the Health Minister replied that anyone. «If there are 51 people in need, we’ll do it too, we’ll raise the money. Such operations used to cost us about $7,500. Work in this direction will begin soon,» Alymkadyr Beishenaliev said.
It should be noted that the Kyrgyz Republic has adopted a new law «On Protection of Citizens’ Health» and expanded the list of possible donors.
«If earlier only parents, brothers and sisters could become donors, now it is grandparents and cousins. Of course, kinship ties have to be proved. We check the compatibility of donor and recipient organs, the equipment in Bishkek is working. Over the past four months, we have checked the identity of analyses in Russia, Turkey and Kazakhstan, and our analyses match foreign ones,» Alymkadyr Beishenaliev said.
The new law allows surgeries to be performed in private clinics.
«But they must obtain a license from the Ministry of Health and prove the doctors’ specialization. Currently, there are no applications for licenses, and private clinics are not yet ready for such operations. Transplantology requires a lot of specialists of the highest category — transplantologists, anesthesiologists-resuscitators, cardiologists, immunologists and so on — a large team as a whole. The Ministry of Health sends doctors for training to Turkey,» the minister added.
On January 11-12, Alymkadyr Beishenaliev visited Turkey and participated in a liver transplantation operation. Turkish specialists said they were ready to help organize the work of the transplantology department, train specialists and conduct joint liver and bone marrow transplant operations in Kyrgyzstan.
According to the Ministry of Health, at the end of January 2024, a group of transplantologists led by Dr. Ahmet Kızılay will arrive in Bishkek, visit the National Center for Maternal and Child Welfare, the National Surgical Center and familiarize themselves with the conditions necessary to organize operations.
In addition, in the coming days, 20 Kyrgyz specialists — surgeons, anesthesiologists-resuscitators, gastroenterologists and nursing staff needed for liver and bone marrow transplantation — will go to Turkey for free training.
