Those Patients Requiring Dialysis without the Availability of a Kidney Donor

A patient may access the cadaveric transplant list once established on dialysis, provided the patient  meet certain criteria.

Each year, the criteria are becoming more stringent,.Effectively the criteria is designed to ensure  a realistic benefit from kidney transplantation.

That is not as obvious as it looks as there are some patients who would deteriorate with a kidney transplant, or would not be able to undertake kidney transplantation because of co-existing medical or surgical disease.

The waiting time may be substantial. The average time on dialysis before transplantion in the ACT managed patients is 5.5 years.

A patient “competes” with all other patients on the waiting list each time a kidney is available. A computer algorithm sifting blood group, tissue typing, cross matching, reactive antibodies , length of time on dialysis and status as a paediatric patient determines the outcome.

It is a flawed system but one agreed to by the Renal Community!