BAHA

 

In October 2017, my colleague Prof. Nizam Mamode and I spent one week in Yerevan, based at the Arabkir Medical Centre.  We visited the operating theatres, intensive care and post-op facilities, as well as the outpatient clinics, and were able to discuss issues with surgeons, nephrologists, and anaesthetists/intensivists. In addition, we participated in two living donor transplants. The first was for an 11 year old boy, who had been on dialysis for almost 4 years and had previously been turned down for transplantation. The second transplant was for a 46 year old woman who had undergone transplantation in 2014, and now had a failing graft. Professor Mamode performed  hand-assisted laparoscopic donor nephrectomies, with the local surgeons (Dr Geyikyan) carrying out part of the procedure under supervision. Two local surgeons (Dr Babloyan and Dr Geyikyan) and I assisted. At the time of writing, all four patients are doing well.

 

In addition to the operative work, we visited  Erebuni Hospital, and Astghik Hospital to meet with intensive care doctors - in particular Dr Harut Mangoyan, Head of Intensive Care at Erebuni, and the Heads of Surgery and Urology at Ashtghik, who are all interested both in learning how to identify potential deceased donors, and helping to set up a deceased donor network in Armenia. Overall, we both left feeling very excited about the possibility of helping our transplant colleagues who are clearly both skilled and enthusiastic for the future. The challenge now is to raise funding and awareness of the project in order to ensure a long term future for transplantation in Armenia.