Pampanga hospital conducts first kidney transplant

ANGELES CITY, Philippines – The Angeles University Foundation Medical Center (AUFMC) here announced yesterday its first successful kidney transplant on a 38-year-old woman from a resettlement area for the victims of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in Pampanga.

AUFMC president and chief executive officer Gabriel Martin Angeles said the patient, Maria Elena Navarro, a former overseas Filipino worker from the Madapdap resettlement in Mabalacat town, received her new kidney last June 21 and was recently discharged from the hospital after recuperating fully.

“We take pride in this new milestone and we renew our commitment to provide quality health care to the people of central and northern Luzon,” he said.

Angeles said a medical team led by renowned transplant surgeon Dr. Rose Marie Rosete-Liquete conducted the operation.

He said Navarro had been suffering from “end-state renal disease” since 2007. She was working as a nurse in Saudi Arabia when she was diagnosed with the disease and since then had been undergoing hemodialysis every other day.

“The AUFMC is the only hospital north of Metro Manila with an active DOH-accredited transplant program. Transplant candidates no longer have to travel all the way to Manila for this service, which saves so much time, money and effort,” said Dr. Marizel Catungal, head of the AUFMC’s Kidney Transplant Center.

The four-hour simultaneous surgeries of the donor and recipient were performed by Liquete and her team composed of assistant transplant surgeon Adolfo Parayno; nephrologists Eden Castillo, Emely Pasumbal and Joy Mallari; urologists Anthony Dexter Griño, Mauricio Gatches and Marcelino Morales; anesthesiologists Grace Enriquez, Ed Arceo, Godofredo Henson, Arnold Grajeda and Asuncion Asis; and general surgeons Rommel Serrano and Alfonso Danac.