kidney donor died in a matter of hours after surgery in India and while relatives are still to learn what went wrong during the operation they said they have come to terms with her passing since not much can be done.
Roseline Boodram, 50, died on April 22, 2011 at the Pushpawati Singhania Research Institute in India as a result of reported liver, renal and digestive diseases.
The woman had offered to be the donor for her 37-year-old nephew (who relatives preferred to haveremained unnamed) after finding out that both the man’s kidneys were shutting down.
Boodram’s sister, Christine, sat down with Stabroek News at her home on Sunday and recalled the months leading up to her sister’s death.
Christine said after a year of seeking some sort of diagnosis from doctors around Guyana, her nephew finally found out that he was suffering a kidney ailment and at that time, both of his kidneys were damaged. “They couldn’t figure out what was the problem but when he did, it was too late,” the woman explained.
She noted that the man was required to start dialysis immediately and this, she said, was very expensive. “It was almost like $50,000 for every dialysis and he had to get it every 3 days so while they were doing that, they were trying to get a donor as soon as possible too,” Christine stated.
The woman told this newspaper that the family had many telethons during that period and they had almost reached their goal of US$37,000. The government, she said, contributed $1 million to the surgery. “They managed to raise almost all of it… they went up to Berbice and Essequibo, they went on Riaz Show and Sharma to raise [the money],” she recalled.
She explained that although the family was playing a big role financially before the fundraisers began, all this money went towards the dialysis which was a necessity for him at that stage.
After adequate money was acquired, Boodram, her nephew and his wife flew off to France and then to India where the kidney transplant was done.
“The passage for airfare alone was a lot… but the surgery itself was US$12,000,” Christine noted.
She explained that prior to this arrangement, the two had applied through the government to get assistance with the paperwork and such but stated that her nephew was the ninth person on that list and as such, her sister refused to wait as cost of the man’s dialysis treatment would have skyrocketed.
Once in India, Christine said, the two were admitted to the private institution where they would undergo surgery. The woman’s sister told Stabroek News that her niece-in-law had related to the family that Boodram was recovering well.
“She came out of surgery and as the anaesthetic was wearing off they realized something was wrong,” Christine said she gathered from what she was told.
“She opened her eyes and the doctors asked if she was okay and she said she was in a lot of pain and she was saying she wanna go to the bathroom and she tried to get up and she fell. But we don’t know nothing for sure. We weren’t there. The only person who knows what took place is my niece-in-law,” Christine related.
The woman added that her nephew was not doing very well and was forced to undergo surgery a second and subsequently, third time. “He had to go back into surgery after the kidney start to shut down – onto now, he would be good today and like tomorrow is another thing. The kidney is working but it’s not 100%,” Christine explained.
Boodram’s body, her sister said, took 3 weeks to be flown to Guyana and had to be embalmed as a result. This has led to questions as to what became of Boodram’s other body parts. If they were sold, they family would never know, Christine indicated.
Two of the woman’s eldest children, Christine said, were strongly against her going and are questioning who signed the permission slip since it reportedly had to be signed by one of her children. “Nobody wanted her to go and do it because everyone knew of the risks but she kept saying nothing would happen she is gonna come back,” Christine tearfully said.
“It was so shocking. We were surprised… everybody was shocked,” the woman said.
Christine explained that her sister had fibroids and family members couldn’t understand how she qualified for the surgery to begin with. “The doctors said they would’ve done it and we were saying that can’t be good for her because of her age and because she was not a very healthy person but we can understand why she wanted to do it because it is my nephew and not a stranger,” Christine said.
Boodram was a mother of five, including Paul Bahadur, who drowned on September 25 at the St Cuthbert’s Mission after travelling there with his friends. The 26-year-old went missing and his body was fished out of the creek the following day.
