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Caracas to Santo Domingo: Creating Access to Pediatric Liver Transplant from the Ground, Up
Celebration from Dr. Kato, Dr. Rivas, the patient’s family, and the whole team after a successful living liver transplant. Dr. Kato embraces an overjoyed family member. (Image courtesy of FundaHigadoAmerica)
By Lindsay Gandolfo
It all started in Venezuela 19 years ago, when transplant surgeon and Chief of Abdominal Organ Transplantation Tomoaki Kato, MD met Venezuelan transplant surgeon Pedro A. Rivas Vetencourt, MD.
Dr. Kato was a surgeon in Miami at the time, trying to help a local mother raise money to bring her very sick child from Caracas to the U.S. for a living liver transplant. Living liver transplant is a procedure that uses a segment of the liver from a living donor to replace the recipient’s diseased liver, where it grows to size. Due to astronomical costs, they couldn’t find the money to treat the child in the U.S., prompting Dr. Kato to say: “Maybe I can find somebody and we can do the transplant in Caracas.”
By 2004 in Venezuela, liver transplant in adults was established but there was no program anywhere for children. “I started calling my friends from Venezuela and somehow, miraculously, in the same day I was talking to a surgeon in Caracas who really wanted a surgeon like me to help them start a pediatric liver transplant program,” says Dr. Kato. That surgeon was Dr. Rivas.
. . .
In Caracas they started first by training an anesthesiologist, a pediatric intensive care unit, radiologists, and ultrasound technicians—All the pieces required to complete a successful transplant. They were also able to find monetary resources through government support.
“We don’t want to just treat rich people’s children,” says Dr. Kato. “So, we negotiated with the government [in Caracas] to do it in the private hospital but have the government fund the program so we don’t discriminate against any child.”
More:
https://columbiasurgery.org/news/caracas-santo-domingo-creating-access-pediatric-liver-transplant-ground