PARAMARIBO, Suriname (CMC) — Suriname’s health officials are preparing to perform the country’s first kidney transplant this week.

The operations will be carried out by a team led by Dr Mirza Idu and Professor Dr Frederike Bemelman from the Netherlands, supported by some medical specialists from the Academic Hospital Paramaribo.

Recent screenings of patients and donors resulted in six potential couples, all of whom will receive transplants.

Recently, Health Minister Amar Ramadhin finalised a cooperation agreement between Amsterdam UMC and Suriname that led to the implementation of the transplant programme.

Amsterdam UMC is the largest kidney transplant centre in the Netherlands with 17,000 employees.

According to the Ministry of Health, the kidney transplant programme is a sustainable model, in which the knowledge will be transferred by the foreign team to Suriname within three, to enable local doctors to perform the transplants on their own.

In recent years, the number of kidney patients in Suriname has grown rapidly and as a result there has been an increase in the number of people who are now dependent on dialysis.

“People with kidney failure have to dialysis for four hours three times a week. They have more or less lost their freedom and besides that they are always tired,” said cardio-thoracic surgeon Krishna Khargi at the opening of a renal outpatient clinic last year.

The approach to kidney transplants in Suriname is that potential candidates find a donor in their own family, someone who is healthy and willing to donate a kidney.

The number of kidney patients in Suriname is estimated to be between 800 and 900.