Plea for liver and kidney gifts

The disease, primary hyperoxaluria, is caused by the shortage of a liver enzyme that normally prevents the build-up of oxalate - the main component of kidney stones.

Oxalates damage kidneys and other organs of the body. As a result of this condition, Reabetswe's kidneys stopped functioning in March last year.

Reabetswe, of Dobsonville in Soweto, has since been on both haemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis to clean his blood and get rid of oxalates, a function normally performed by the kidneys.

"For him to stay alive the boy has to undergo this treatment daily - he is such a small child and the process can be tiring for such a small body," Dr Pabea Hani, Reabetswe's physician at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, said.

Hani said the only cure was a liver and kidney transplant that could only be performed at the Red Cross Children's Hospital in Cape Town.

The problem is that Reabetswe's father, Tibatso Mogwere, 35, is unemployed.

The father has to haemodialysis the boy four days a week - on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Mogwere takes his son to the Johannesburg hospital on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for peritoneal dialysis.

Hani said dialysis was the only way to keep the boy alive but emphasised that it was not a cure.

She said Reabetswe had been on the hospital's organ waiting list for almost a year now.

If Reabetswe does manage to go to Cape Town for the operation and treatment, he will have to be there for nine months, Hani said.

"It is going to be a difficult operation with no guarantees," she said.

"Since his father is not working because he has to be with the boy 24 hours, he needs all the financial support from the public for food and accommodation while in Cape Town," Hani added.

Mogwere said his son's monthly grant of R1100 was meagre considering the number of trips they have to make to Johannesburg Hospital a week and the dietary requirements for Reabetswe that the doctors had prescribed.

Red Cross Hospital spokeswoman Lauren O'Connor-May confirmed that the boy was currently on the hospital's list of people waiting for organ transplants.

She said there was no donor available yet for Reabetswe.

"A combined transplant is very rare," O'Connor-May said.

If Reabetswe grows older without the organs, he will experience severe chronic bone pains and weakness.

His father has appealed to the general public to assist with "pocket money and groceries".

The boy's mother left them because of marital problems. She is also unemployed.

Source: Sowetan