At 43, hope was Beth Muthoni’s only crutch as she clung to life. In far away Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, renal transplant was a daring dream and expensive medical care an unavoidable nightmare. So the housewife just waited—and listened to radio, where one day she heard of a man who had undergone kidney transplant in Ahmedabad, India. The cost wasn’t prohibitive, the distance bridgeable. So Muthoni clung tighter to hope and caught the next plane to India along with her cousin Ruth and caretaker Joyce Wainaina. Soon, Muthoni hopes to have Ruth’s kidney and a new life.

Besides Muthoni, patients from African countries are flocking to the Institute of Kidney Disease & Research Centre (IKDRC) at Ahmedabad’s Civil Hospital. According to hospital records, of the 231 patients who were operated upon in 2006, 29 belonged to countries like Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria. More than a hundred foreign nationals have been operated upon in the past three years.

“The hospital is very popular in our country and the local media in Nairobi plays it up. Apart from the journalist who was interviewed on radio, we know of a large number of people who have been successfully operated upon,” says Wainaina.

“The hospital’s reputation has carried through word of mouth,” agrees Dr H.L. Trivedi, director of the institute. “The fact that the treatment here is far cheaper than in their own countries or in South Africa and England—where they went for treatment earlier—is a big draw.”

It all began when Trivedi conducted a renal transplant surgery on a Ugandan ambassador to Italy, who soon returned for treatment of an abscess in his leg. Today, there are other reasons that pull in the Africans. “These three countries—Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda—are facing national crises. Besides the treatment, many drugs are not available or are very expensive. The monopoly of pharmaceutical companies and political corruption doesn’t help,” adds Trivedi.

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