The last few weeks have been pretty hectic for the small team of faculty and postgraduate medical professionals in the Department of Pediatric Nephrology at SAT Hospital. The state’s only specialized pediatric kidney care center celebrated its first-ever pediatric kidney transplant on Jan. 13, when one of its young patients with end-stage renal disease received a kidney transplant from her paternal grandfather.
The team was conducting follow-up tests, monitoring the child and running the Outpatient Clinic (OP) when the Kerala State Organ and Tissue Transplantation Organization (K-SOTTO) authorities on Thursday night (February 14, 2026) inquired whether the department had any children on the urgent kidney transplant list to receive two small kidneys from a deceased donor.
The 10-year-old girl, who received both kidneys from nine-month-old Aalin, a deceased donor, was on maintenance hemodialysis at SAT Hospital since the last one and a half years.
Kidney transplants in adult children, especially those weighing less than 20 kg, are associated with vascular, anatomical, and surgical complications. Friday’s kidney transplant was quite unusual, the donor was a small infant.
“Now we have 40 children on the transplant list and many more on maintenance dialysis. There was a time when most of our young patients with kidney failure died because we did not have dialysis facilities and most families could not afford maintenance dialysis outside. It was in 2006 that we finally had our dialysis unit. Today there are also several government initiatives that offer financial assistance to families who are facing chronic diseases,” says Pediatric, which has made a huge difference the difference. department.
Two consecutive pediatric kidney transplants were therefore pivotal from the department’s point of view
From a single faculty unit, it has been a long journey for the pediatric nephrology department here, which today has a comprehensive kidney replacement program, 50 dedicated beds for pediatric kidney patients and a 12-bed dialysis unit.
The department now offers a full range of kidney treatment modalities for children, has a specialist acute kidney injury clinic and now a transplant service. The Referral Center for Pediatric Renal Care in South India also runs a special program for early detection and treatment of congenital renal and urinary tract anomalies in children.
The recent postdoctoral (DM) program in pediatric nephrology, the only one in the public sector in the country, was one of the greatest highlights of the institution’s clinical and academic excellence.
Key challenges
Children with severe renal failure who are placed on chronic dialysis face many problems, primary of which is heart failure. Kidney transplantation is the definitive treatment for them.
“So we worked to build a pediatric kidney transplant unit to offer affordable, quality care to the many families with chronically ill children. It’s encouraging to be able to offer the best care to our little kidney patients,” says Dr. Uthup.
Published – 15 Feb 2026 18:25 IST