Family gift of new lease of life

Mohammed Islam will always be eternally grateful to his brother Fiaz.

Without Fiaz volunteering to donate one of his kidneys to his brother Izzy, as Mohammed is affectionately known, faced an uncertain future of dialysis waiting for a suitable donor.

“There is a very real shortage of organ donors from the Asian community,” expains the father of five from Buttershaw. “People say it is religion but I don’t see why any God wouldn’t want to save someone’s life. I think it is fear and lack of education.”

Izzy’s problems started with high blood pressure, before blood tests revealed abnormalities in October 2011. “I was referred to Halifax and went to see the consultant. He said it was something that needed investigating, but nothing to be alarmed about,” said the 37-year-old.

He was told a biopsy was needed and he would be seen again in 10 weeks.

“I went back to work and got a phone call saying for me to go and see a doctor and go straight to St James’s. My kidney function was down to 19 per cent.

“I was in shock. The doctor asked me if I’d had any of the symptoms but when I asked what they were he said tiredness and back ache. I work 12-hour shifts and do a lot of heavy lifting as part of my job so I never really thought about it.”

Izzy was diagnosed with an immune disorder which affected his kidneys.

“It wasn’t a case of if I was going on dialysis, it was a case of when. I was scared for my health and the impact it would have on my life.”

He had to have time off work, was exhausted and suffered severe back pain.

“You just presume you will be put on the transplant list but that’s not the case.

“You have to fit certain criteria.”

He went on the transplant list in June 2012, and started dialysis in the September, when his kidney function fell to about 12 per cent.

He opted to have treatment at home, peritoneal dialysis – when a tube was inserted to his abdomen and received the life-saving procedure to flush his kidneys out through the night, every night.

An off-road role was found for him with Yorkshire Ambulance Service, but he still had to have time off work.

“Being on dialysis, it has a massive impact on your day. It was every single day, it took between six and eight hours,” he said. “I thought, ‘is this what life is going to be?’ You don’t want to get down about it, it’s really hard to stay positive. With my ethnicity some people can stay on the list for years, but I had the disadvantage of having a rare blood type group.”

It was suggested that he approach relatives to ask if they would consider be a live kidney donor.

“But how do you broach that subject? What do you say? It’s not like asking for a cup of sugar or ‘can you lend me a tenner’,” says Izzy. “There was no way I was going to ask my brother or sister. What if something went wrong?”

Izzy’s’s brother, Fiaz, and sister, Famina Jan, both offered to be tested to see if they were a match

“They kept offering and I just said ‘no’ and they shouldn’t have to go through that because of my misfortune.”

But when Fiaz, 30, was found to be a match, he relented.

“He said if he was in the same situation as me, would I help him? And I said ‘yes of course I would’. He said ‘well that’s it then’.”

Fiaz had various tests to make sure he was a suitable donor and mentally prepared, before the transplant surgery in July in Leeds.

The transplant was a success, Mohammed’s health has improved dramatically and he has now returned to work. He wants more people from his community to think about organ donation.

He has also helped to organise a fund-raising and awareness group BAKRA – Bradford and Airedale Kidney Renal Association.

“We want to raise awareness of donation but also fund-raise. We would like to put a pack together for kidney patients with all the essential they need when they are rushed into hospital.

“If you could help someone by giving them a gift like that, why wouldn’t you do it? It’s about making a sacrifice to each other.”

Donor organs in demand

Around 66 per cent of Black, Asian and some Ethnic Minority (BAME) communities in the UK refuse to give permission for their loved one’s organs to be donated. Yet there are more than 1154 Asian people waiting for an organ in the UK.

Patients from BAME communities are more likely to need an organ transplant than the rest of the population as they are more susceptible to illnesses such as hypertension, diabetes and certain forms of hepatitis, all of which may result in organ failure and the need for a lifesaving transplant.