In Lviv, a 13-year-old boy from the town of Dolyna in Ivano-Frankivsk region underwent a kidney transplant from a deceased donor. The operation was performed by specialists of the First Medical Association of Lviv on the very day of the Feast of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The patient, Vitalik Shykhardyn, is one of six children in the family. The boy has been ill since early childhood: at the age of eight months, doctors detected a congenital defect of the urinary system and bladder spasm, because of which his kidney function gradually deteriorated.
In recent years, the child’s condition has significantly worsened. Due to weakness, Vitalik could not attend school and switched to individual tuition, and his kidney function indicators became critical — his creatinine level exceeded 800. In the spring, the boy began to undergo regular haemodialysis.
While his mother stayed at home with the other five children, his father took his son from Dolyna to Lviv twice a week for hours-long procedures. Due to medical contraindications, relatives could not become donors, so Vitalik was placed on the waiting list for a posthumous transplant.
During each haemodialysis session, the boy’s father would go into the chapel at St Nicholas Children’s Hospital and pray for his son’s recovery.
“During every procedure I prayed constantly. I asked that my child would recover as soon as possible… Because dialysis is very hard for a child. And before that I went to pray again. We finished the procedure, got on the minibus and were already on our way to the station to go home when the doctor called us and said that a donor had been found” — the boy’s father
The phone call with the news about the donor came on the eve of the Feast of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The operation began in the early hours of 15 August, at about one o’clock, and lasted five hours.
The kidney transplant from an adult deceased donor to the 13-year-old patient was carried out jointly by the teams of St Nicholas Children’s Hospital and the Transplantology Centre of St Panteleimon Hospital. Due to the child’s anatomical features and very thin blood vessels, the intervention was technically complex, but the surgeons managed to connect the organ precisely. The kidney started working right there on the operating table.
The most difficult stage is now behind them: Vitalik’s condition indicators have quickly stabilised, he has been transferred to a regular ward, where the boy is gradually recovering and taking his first steps towards a full life.
The Transplantology Centre of the First Medical Association of Lviv has remained Ukraine’s leader in the number of transplants for five years in a row. Hundreds of organ transplant operations have been performed here, giving patients a chance at a new life.
It was in Lviv that Ukraine’s first “pancreas–kidney” complex transplant, the first “heart–lungs” complex transplant, as well as a successful split liver transplant were performed.
The Transplantology Centre of the First Medical Association of Lviv is located at: vul. Mykolaychuka, 9.