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DUBAI / GULF TIME
King’s College Hospital London in Dubai has announced the launch of its Kidney Transplant Centre, bringing together specialist expertise in nephrology, transplant surgery, anaesthesia, intensive care, diagnostics, and long-term follow-up to provide comprehensive kidney transplant care under one roof. The new centre is an expansion of the hospital’s organ transplantation programme, which began with its liver transplant centre, a programme that has achieved many firsts for the country.
The new centre supports patients with advanced kidney disease who need a transplant. It offers a clear pathway from assessment and donor evaluation to surgery and ongoing care after the transplant.
The programme offers a comprehensive kidney transplant service, including living donor and paired kidney transplants among the pathways available. Living donor transplants can be arranged with relatives up to the fourth degree, following UAE law. Paired kidney transplants help when a donor is healthy but not a match for their recipient. In these cases, two donor-recipient pairs can be matched so both patients can receive a transplant.
In paired kidney transplants, all four surgeries, the two donor operations and the two recipient transplants, are done at the same time. Doing them together helps keep everyone safe and needs a well-coordinated medical team.
The centre is supported by a comprehensive transplant team. All living donor surgeries at King’s are offered as fully robotic, minimally invasive procedures, giving donors the unique advantages of quicker recovery, smaller scars, and a faster return to normal life. The programme is also backed by an active research portfolio in transplantation and kidney care.
Kimberley Pierce, Chief Executive Officer of King’s College Hospital London in Dubai, said: “The launch of our Kidney Transplant Centre marks an important step in the growth of advanced transplant services at King’s. Kidney transplantation can be life-changing for patients with kidney failure, but delivering it well takes specialist donor assessment, surgical expertise, intensive care support, long-term nephrology follow-up, and a team that can coordinate every stage of the journey. By bringing those services together in one dedicated programme, we are making it easier for patients in the UAE to access highly specialised transplant care closer to home. Our ambition does not stop there. Building on the achievements of our liver transplant programme, we are committed to making King’s a centre of excellence for multi-organ transplantation in the region.”
All doctors in the kidney transplant programme work full-time at the hospital, so patients see the same team throughout their care.
Dr. Siddiq Anwar, Consultant Transplant Nephrologist, said: “Kidney transplantation offers many patients with end-stage kidney disease the chance to regain their health, independence, and quality of life. Successful transplantation starts with careful patient selection, thorough donor and recipient evaluation, and close coordination between nephrologists, surgeons, and specialist nurses. Living donor and paired transplant pathways can open the door to transplantation for patients who may otherwise face longer waits, while also allowing us to plan surgery in a structured and closely monitored way. Our transplant practice also sits alongside an active research programme, which keeps the care we deliver aligned with the latest evidence in the field.”
Patients referred to the Kidney Transplant Centre undergo a detailed medical, surgical, and psychosocial evaluation to assess suitability for transplantation and donor safety. The programme supports the full transplant pathway, including recipient assessment, donor workup, surgical planning, inpatient care, and long-term monitoring after transplant to help protect the health of both the patient and the transplanted kidney.
Dr. Rehan Saif, Consultant Hepato Pancreato Biliary & Abdominal Multi-Organ Transplant Surgeon, said: “Kidney transplantation is one of the most complex services a hospital can offer because it depends on far more than the technical success of the operation itself. It requires careful donor and recipient assessment, detailed surgical planning, close perioperative monitoring, and long-term follow-up after transplant. Paired kidney transplantation adds another layer of coordination, with two donor procedures and two recipient transplant surgeries taking place simultaneously to allow the exchange to proceed safely for everyone involved. By offering every donor surgery as a fully robotic, minimally invasive procedure, we can make the donation itself less demanding for the people who give this gift. Establishing a dedicated Kidney Transplant Centre with a full-time specialist team allows us to deliver that level of coordination, continuity, and surgical expertise here in Dubai.”
Dr. Tashfeen Ali, Chief Medical Officer of King’s College Hospital London in Dubai, said: “Launching a dedicated Kidney Transplant Centre reflects the level of clinical infrastructure, governance, and multidisciplinary expertise needed to deliver transplant care safely and consistently. Kidney transplantation is one of the most demanding areas of medicine, requiring close collaboration across nephrology, surgery, anaesthesia, critical care, diagnostics, and long-term follow-up. As we build towards multi-organ transplantation at King’s, the kidney programme will be held to the same standards of governance and clinical outcomes set by our liver transplant programme, which has delivered many firsts for the UAE.”
The launch of the Kidney Transplant Centre reflects King’s continued investment in complex tertiary and quaternary care, giving patients in Dubai, the UAE, and the wider region access to advanced transplant medicine and an active clinical research programme through a dedicated specialist service.