Kidney Transplant

Overview

One healthy kidney is enough to keep a person well. That is what makes a living donor transplant possible: a close relative gives one kidney and carries on normally, and the person with kidney failure gets a working kidney in place of dialysis.

The new kidney is placed low in the abdomen, just above the groin, and your own kidneys usually stay in place. Often the new kidney makes urine within hours.

For patients who travel, nearly every transplant uses a living donor from the family, because deceased donor kidneys are scarce in every country. So planning means two things in parallel: medical tests, and legal approval in the country where you are treated. You can name a preferred country on the quote form or let hospitals in several countries quote; the donor rules below often decide it as much as price does. The transplant team makes every medical decision; we handle the arrangements.

Who needs it

A transplant is considered for people with end stage kidney disease, meaning the kidneys work so poorly that the body needs dialysis (a machine or a fluid exchange that cleans the blood) to stay alive. Common causes include diabetes, long term high blood pressure, glomerulonephritis (inflammation of the kidney's tiny filters) and polycystic kidney disease (an inherited condition in which fluid filled cysts grow in both kidneys). Some people are assessed before dialysis starts (a pre-emptive transplant).

Not everyone is suitable. The team checks the heart and lungs, looks for infection or cancer, and asks whether the patient can take daily medicines for life. Sometimes a problem, such as a dental infection or a blocked heart artery, has to be treated first.

Who can donate

Each country has its own transplant law, but the core is the same. The donor is a living adult, usually a close relative, who is medically fit and agrees freely. A government or hospital committee checks the relationship and consent before surgery, and your embassy or home authorities usually certify family documents. Organ trade is illegal everywhere. MediCurage never finds, introduces or pays a donor.

If you are treated in India, the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994 (THOTA) and its 2014 Rules apply. For a foreign patient, the donor is expected to be a near relative: a spouse, parent, brother, sister, child, grandparent or grandchild, aged 18 or over. An Indian citizen cannot donate to a foreign patient unless they are near relatives. A senior official of your country's embassy in India certifies the relationship on Form 21 and confirms no money or pressure is involved. If your country has no embassy in India, your government issues the certificate.

What we confirmed on official sources in October 2026 (rules change, and the hospital confirms them for your case):

• Turkey. A 2022 regulation allows a spouse married at least two years (unless the illness was diagnosed after the marriage) and blood or in-law relatives up to the fourth degree. Other donors need an ethics commission's approval, and the Ministry of Health may require that review, or limit transplants, for health tourism patients from regions with a risk of organ trade.
• Thailand. Medical Council rules accept a blood relative or a spouse of at least three years (no waiting period with a child together). For foreign patients, your embassy or home authorities certify relationship documents, Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs checks them, and HLA or DNA tests at a Thai government institution confirm the blood relationship.
• Mexico. The law prefers donors related by blood, adoption or marriage. Foreign patients and donors need legal immigration status, apostilled or legalised relationship papers with a certified translation, and a hospital transplant committee record that no organ trade or pressure is involved.
• Malaysia. MediCurage checks the current rules for foreign patients with the hospital and authorities before any quote.

Medically, a compatible blood group is usual. Some hospitals can transplant across blood groups (an ABO-incompatible transplant) after lowering the recipient's antibodies, which adds time and cost.

How it is done

Before you travel

Send us the recipient's recent reports: kidney function tests, dialysis details, blood group, heart tests and medicines. Add the donor's age, blood group and any health problems. Partner hospitals in the countries you are considering each quote for your case, and you choose. We request the hospital's visa letter, help the donor and one family member prepare their applications, and book the flights. Attendant rules differ; if you are treated in India, up to two attendants may travel (three for Bangladeshi nationals on the regular medical visa), and the donor is usually one of them.

Start the legal papers at home: passports, birth and marriage records and family photographs. A DNA test may be requested.

Before surgery

A driver or representative we book meets you in the arrivals hall with a board showing the patient's name. We send you their name and number before you fly. They drive you to your stay. Over one to two weeks, both go through tests: blood work, a CT scan of the donor's kidneys and blood vessels, heart checks, and tissue typing with a crossmatch (tests that show whether the recipient's immune system is likely to attack the donor's kidney).

Then comes approval. If you are treated in India, the Authorisation Committee interviews donor and recipient in person, records the interview on video, and gives a written decision; other countries use a hospital or government committee similarly. We arrange an interpreter if the committee allows one. Surgery follows approval.

The operation

The donor's kidney is usually removed by keyhole surgery (laparoscopic donor nephrectomy). The recipient's operation, under general anaesthesia, typically takes three to four hours. The surgeon joins the kidney to an artery and a vein in the pelvis and connects its ureter (the tube that carries urine) to the bladder. A thin tube called a stent is often left in the ureter for a few weeks while it heals.

Recovery and how long you stay

The donor is usually walking by the next day and leaves hospital within 3 to 5 days. The recipient stays about 7 to 10 days, with close checks on urine output, fluid balance and kidney blood tests.

After discharge you stay near the hospital and visit the clinic two or three times a week at first. The team adjusts your immunosuppressants (medicines that stop your immune system rejecting the kidney). You take these every day for as long as the kidney works, so you fly home with a written plan and enough medicine to last until you see your own doctor.

Plan for five to six weeks in the country where you are treated, covering tests, approval, surgery and enough follow up for the doctor to clear you to fly. The stent is often removed before you leave. Your coordinator books return flights once the transplant team agrees, and after you are home we help send your blood results back to the hospital.

Questions to ask your surgeon

• Which committee approves our donor here, and how long does that usually take?
• What happens if the crossmatch is positive or our blood groups do not match?
• Which immunosuppressants will I take, and can I buy them in my home country?
• How often will I need blood tests at home, and can my local nephrologist (kidney specialist) do them?
• Whom do we contact at the hospital if a result worries us after we fly home?

Ask the medicine question early. Anti-rejection drugs such as tacrolimus are sold under different brands and strengths in different countries, and a switch can shift the level in your blood, so teams usually want a blood test after any change.