Kidney donation to a stranger

Last March 15, Lois Montour - the executive director of the Kateri Memorial Hospital Foundation – was on the operation table to donate her kidney to a total stranger, in the memory of her father who had succumbed to kidney disease.

A month later, there she is, present at the organizers' table for the first-ever Chateauguay Kidney Walk held to sensitize the community to that cause.

Montour has been personally affected by the kidney disease of her father. She would have liked go give him a kidney, but a graft was not conceivable for him because of his medical condition. « My father told me, you will have to give your kidney to someone else, » she relates. « When he died, I decided to make a kidney donation to a stranger. » The Kahnawake resident registered herself into a kidney donation program, which enables her to make a living donation anonymously. This program enables the twinning of incompatible donor-receiver couples and anonymous donors. For example, a daughter who wishes to give a kidney to her father, but whose organs are not compatible. Her father could be twinned to an anonymous compatible donor and his daughter could give her kidney to a third party who needs it. In her case, Montour gave her kidney to a person from Toronto. 

Lois Montour quickly accepted to get involved with the first edition of the Chateauguay Kidney Walk, because she wishes to sensitize her community about kidney disease. Research has demonstrated that indigenous people have a greater risk of suffering from kidney problems than does the general public.

(Translation Dan Rosenburg) 

See also : First kidney walk in Châteauguay