About living donations

Provided your kidneys are healthy and functioning normally, it is perfectly feasible for one of them to be removed and transplanted into someone else’s body. You may be interested in this section if you have a relative, a spouse or a dear friend who you love and to whom you would like to donate one of your kidneys. You will know from first hand experience what life has been like for them having to cope with the misery of kidney failure, having to go for dialysis several times a week, not being able to go on holiday and so on.

There are two major advantages for your loved one to receive a new kidney from a living donor such as yourself:

• He or she will not have to wait for years on UK Transplant’s database.
• No time will be lost in transplanting the kidney from you to your loved one as you will be together in the same hospital, in the same theatre department. It will go straight from your body into theirs whereas a kidney from a donor who has just died may have to be packaged in preservative and transported many miles from the donor’s hospital.