Wits reaches 1,000 liver transplants but needs donors desperately

Wits University’s liver transplant programme has reached a major milestone after performing its 1,000th liver transplant, but doctors say a severe shortage of organ donors continues to prevent many patients from receiving life-saving treatment.

The programme, a partnership between Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre and Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, has completed 637 adult and 363 paediatric liver transplants since it was established in 2004.

The milestone was marked in Johannesburg on Thursday, where transplant specialists reflected on more than two decades of innovation while calling for greater public awareness about organ donation.

Prof Jerome Loveland, head of transplantation at Wits, described the achievement as the result of years of collaboration by highly specialised medical teams rather than a single surgical success.

“People often see the transplant operation as the defining moment. In reality, it is the culmination of years of expertise and systems development across highly specialised teams,” he said.

Loveland said the programme has grown into one of Africa’s leading transplant centres by introducing procedures such as:

• living donor liver transplantation for adults and children;
• split liver transplants;
• blood group-incompatible transplants;
• HIV-positive donor liver transplants; and
• most recently, liver machine perfusion technology.

It means giving 1,000 patients a second chance at life. Transplant is often the last port of call in their journey in chronic liver disease. For us to be able to offer this life-saving treatment to 1,000 patients across our country is really momentous

—  Carla Wilmans, administrative head of Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre transplant unit

Despite these advances, Loveland said, the shortage of deceased donor organs in South Africa continues to limit how many patients can receive life-saving transplants.

“The real issue is around getting organs to transplant into patients and to optimally utilise those organs when we do get them,” he said.

Carla Wilmans, administrative head of the transplant unit at Donny Gordon, said the milestone represented far more than a number.

“Both personally and professionally, it means giving 1,000 patients a second chance at life,” she said. “Transplant is often the last port of call in their journey in chronic liver disease. For us to be able to offer this life-saving treatment to 1,000 patients across our country is really momentous.”

Wilmans said South Africa’s deceased organ donation rate remains among the lowest globally, with fewer than 1.2 donors per million people.

“We are at a crisis point,” she said, describing the shortage as the greatest barrier to offering more transplants to patients on waiting lists.

Continued growth of the programme would require greater public education, and stronger government support and investment in health care, she said.

“I think it’s an investment from the country, it’s an investment from our people. It’s about educating ourselves about what organ donation and transplantation is and how we can give people a second chance at life.”

Loveland said one of the programme’s priorities for the next decade was not only to perform the next 1,000 transplants quicker but also to build a larger and stronger team capable of saving even more lives.

He said increasing public awareness of deceased organ donation is critical to giving more patients access to life-saving transplants. He urged South Africans who wish to become organ donors to discuss the decision with their families, as relatives make the final decision after a person’s death.

“We all want to leave a legacy. What better legacy to leave than knowing you have given somebody else a second chance at life?” said Wilmans.

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