Wessex Kidney Centre enjoy successful year of transplantsÂ

The Wessex Kidney Centre, based at the Cosham site, did 118 transplants in 2017/18 - its busiest year to date.

When it first opened in 2004, it did 42 transplants but the centre treating more patients is something being celebrated by staff.

Paul Gibbs is clinical director for transplantation and renal surgery within the centre.

He is part of a massive team from biomedical scientists, who carry on biopsies on donor organs, and consultant histopathologists, who check to see a new organ is working, to the after-care nurses and staff dedicated to supporting living donors.

Mr Gibbs, a surgeon, says it is thanks to this team and everyone working together that the Wessex Kidney Centre has continued to progress.

'˜We as surgeons could not do what we do without the teams behind us,' he says.

'˜We have people doing the post-operation care and answering the questions being asked by patients.

'˜It is the nurses and care teams who are helping them, giving them vital support and ensuring they know they are being looked after.

'˜I am part of a huge team, not even just based in this hospital.' The Wessex Kidney Centre has seen its number of transplants increase steadily with 87 in 2015/16 and 107 in 2016/17. 

Mr Gibbs adds: '˜Over the past few years, we have been getting busier and busier.

'˜That is something to celebrate and something to praise the staff for.

'˜In the year 2017/18 financial year we had 118 transplants of which 35 were from living donors. '˜The willingness all donors, living or not, and their families have shown and the difficult decisions they make have allowed us to have that year.

'˜It is important to us to support the families of donors and acknowledge the difficult times they have been through so a person can have an improved life.

'˜The on-going work of the wider NHS and promotion of donors has helped see more people become donors.'

And as well as being its busiest ever year, this summer also marks 10 years since the centre carried out its first altruistic transplant, where the donor does not know the recipient. It was just the second time in the UK that a transplant of that kind was carried out with the first having taken place in Manchester the previous year.

The centre is also the second largest provider of altruistic donors, again only second to Manchester. Mr Gibbs adds: '˜For a centre based in a district hospital, and not a university hospital like many others, we are doing really well.

'˜Thanks to our donors and their families, we are giving people a second chance at life.

'˜We are giving them the chance to have a normal quality of life that other people take for granted.

'˜It is that difference that keeps this team dedicated and working hard to be the best we can.'