Kidney Swap at Houston Methodist Hospital Bonds 10 People

A rare kind of reunion recently took place at Houston Methodist Hospital. Five strangers who received a donated kidney meet the five strangers who volunteered a kidney. They are linked in a life-saving kidney swap that involved 10 people and it has left them with a life-long bond. With all its complexities from matching antibodies to patient health, a kidney swap is where your loved one needs a kidney, but you’re not a match. So you donate to someone else in exchange for one that is a match.

The chain of the swap is similarly complex and intertwines them all by a sacrifice to save a loved one. Michael Wingard, 20, donated his kidney to 30-year-old Heather O’Neil. Because Michael is donating a kidney that will go to Heather, her twin sister, Staci, donates a kidney to a 47-year-old man named Javier Ramirez Ochoa while Lisa Jolivet, a 43-year-old mother of three, donates one that matches up with Michael’s friend, Kaelyn Connelly, so that Lisa’s 72-year-old mother, Barbara Moton, can receive a kidney from 67-year-old David McLellan, who donated so that his son Chris, who is 31, can receive a kidney from 33-year-old Tomas Martinez so that Javier Ramirez Ochoa can receive that kidney from Staci O’Neil, Heather’s twin sister.

A swap of this size is difficult to pull off and with all the complexities to be synchronized – matching antigens, patient health and COVID – this kidney swap had already been postponed three times since December. The extraordinary 10 person life chain took place over four days. All recipients in the swap are doing well and met for the first time, with the strangers that gave the gift of life.

According to the National Kidney Foundation, there are about 100,000 people in the U.S. on the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network waiting list needing a kidney yet only about 20,000 transplants are performed each year. A patient on the waiting list typically waits an average of three to five years to receive a kidney. In 2020, about 5,000 people on the list died while waiting for a match. Matching kidneys, typically donated after death, never became available.

Living donor kidney donations greatly increase the number of organs available to those still waiting for a match. Kidney swaps are an option when a patient who needs a kidney transplant has a willing donor but they aren’t a good match due to incompatible blood types. The paired exchanges give a ray of hope to life in a dire situation and free up spots on a long waiting list.