Kidney Recipients Gathering

Schneider Children’s has performed 460 kidney transplants in children since its establishment. During the decades prior to the hospital’s establishment in 1992, kidney transplants in children were performed at the neighboring Beilinson Hospital.

The gathering was the brainchild of the Institute of Nephrology at Schneider Children’s headed by Dr. Miriam Davidovits, and Kidney Transplant Coordinator, Naomi Zanhandler, and attended by Minister of Health Rabbi Yaacov Litzman, Prof. Joseph Press, Director of Schneider Children’s, Prof. Eytan Mor, Director of the Organ Transplantation Department, Dr. Tamar Ashkenazi, Director of the National Transplantation Center, and Rabbi Yeshayahu Haber, Chair of the charitable organization, “Gift of Life”.

Youngsters who had undergone kidney transplants over the past two decades at Schneider Children’s came from all over the country. Among those who attended were Roman Koramalov, who received a kidney when he was 5 years old and then later had a heart and lung transplant, and a toddler of three, whose mother donated a kidney to him three months after she had donated a liver lobe to him.

Dr. Davidovits said that “I am very excited to have patients of today meet with kidney recipients of the past who are today themselves parents of children and are leading successful adult lives. There can be no greater satisfaction as a doctor than to see patients integrate back into the circle of life, contribute to society and start a family. I am proud of our excellent results, which are as good as other leading centers in the world”.

The Institute of Nephrology at Schneider Children’s serves as a national center for kidney failure, dialysis and kidney transplantation in children. Patients include infants, children and adolescents who suffer from varying degrees of chronic kidney dysfunction. The Transplantation Department conducts scores of kidney transplants annually in children.