Family left with US$30,000 medical bill

AKIL WILSON, the ten-year-old Trinidadian boy who underwent living donor liver transplant operation in Argentina last November 29, is in good spirits and progressing very well, according to his cousin Dr Debra Bartholomew. The procedure done at the Pilar Hospital was carried out as a parallel surgery where Akil and the donor, Giselle Bartholomew, his cousin and godmother, were operated on at the same time. Akil’s liver was removed and the left and right lobes of the donor’s liver were removed and transplanted into Akil’s body without any complications. Akil was the 99th patient to have a liver transplant at the hospital, which has done 104 transplants to date.

Dr Bartholomew said Akil’s operation was successful and he only suffered some minor discomfort peri-operatively and post-operatively. “He has managed to put on weight and keep the weight. He is definitely out of the wheelchair as he was very weak before, and he is being allowed to eat anything as long as it is low in salt,” said Dr Bartholomew. Dr Bartholomew said Akil has been learning Spanish during his stay in Argentina. “We were so surprised after the operation when he was feeling ravenous and requested things in Spanish. He has also been keeping up with his school-work and is quite anxious to return to school,” said Dr Bartholomew.

Akil has also been collecting Yu-Gi-Oh cards as a hobby and is keeping abreast of the 2006 World Cup football. Akil’s donor is back in the United States where she is recovering from the flu. Dr Bartholomew said her sister’s health would be at risk from viral infections, since her body still needs to recover from the surgery. “It would take approximately one year for her liver to fully regenerate,” she explained. Although Akil’s liver transplant operation has been a success, his family still has to cover the full cost of the transplant, accommodation, and after-care costs. Dr Bartholomew told Sunday Newsday this procedure was one of the most costly operations in the world, since not many places can do it.

The preliminary cost of the transplant was US$67,000, which does not cover the full cost of treatment and after-care. For the air ambulance to Argentina, US$51,000 was borrowed, and US$30,000 is still owed on the operation and air ambulance. “We were lucky because our family is so big and everyone mobilised to pool together for the operation, and the involvement of Dr Maria Bartholomew who assisted greatly in finding a hospital where the procedure could be done,” said Dr Bartholomew. Dr Bartholomew said the family plans to set up a committee to provide advisory support for other people who may encounter problems in accessing funds for transplants programmes.