On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 7pm EST we presented “Introduction to the Kidney Paired Donation (KPD) Program”.
Kidney paired donation is a program that matches transplant candidates with suitable living donors. It gives people the chance to become a living kidney donor while ensuring that someone they want to help receives a needed kidney, even if they are not a direct match.
Canada’s Kidney Paired Donation program is run by Canadian Blood Services, working with the living kidney donation and kidney transplant programs across the country.
Topics
- Why would a PKD/CKD patient want to become part of the KPD program?
- How does the KPD program work?
- Am I limited to matches within my region / province, or will I be eligible for matches across the country?
- When (at what stage of kidney disease) can I become eligible for the KPD program?
- How do I become a potential kidney recipient within the KPD program?
- How do I become a potential kidney donor within the KPD program?
- Once I become enrolled in the KPD program, what does the Match Cycle process look like?
- How long will it take for me to find a match?
- Is there anything that will improve my chances of finding a match within the KPD?
- What if I am a highly sensitized patient? (And how do I know if I'm a highly sensitized patient?)
- Once a match is found, what happens then? (How long will it take before my transplant?)
About the Speakers
Darlene Jagusic is a program manager for Canadian Blood Services and leads the Kidney Paired Donation (KPD) Program and the Highly Sensitized Patient (HSP) registry. She is a critical care trained register nurse spending many years in the Intensive care units in BC and SK. She has organ and tissue experience working for the Saskatchewan provincial transplant program both as a living and deceased organ coordinator prior to her current role at CBS.
Kelly Konieczny is a PKD patient who was recently featured in news stories about the province of Alberta pausing participation in the KPD program because of surgery capacity shortage. Kelly is currently on the KPD waiting list.