Doctors at Beilinson Hospital recently performed the first three-way kidney transplant in Israel. Three people were able to save a loved one's life not by donating an organ directly to them, but by donating to someone else.
The story, reported in the Hebrew-language daily Ma'ariv, began when Natan Hanegbi, 59, was told he needed an urgent kidney transplant. Bob Reinhov, 26, was willing to give Hanegbi one of his kidneys – but as his blood type is O and Hanegbi's B, the two were not a match.
However, doctors decided to compare the two to a list of those waiting for transplant. They found another two patients in desperate need of transplants whose loved ones were found not to be a match, and realized that each of the three would-be donors was a match to one of the three patients – just not the one they knew.
The three were informed of the situation, and agreed to a three-way organ donation. Reinhov gave a kidney to Inbar Magen, 20. Inbar's mother gave a kidney to Rita Parachi, 50, and Rita's husband gave a kidney to Hanegbi.
The three patient-donor pairs met for the first time days before the operation as each underwent extensive testing.
Nine surgeons, five anesthesiologists, and ten nurses and other staff took part in the transplant operations, which all took place on Monday of last week. The donors have been released, while the recipients remain in the hospital to recuperate.
A new national program aims to increase the frequency of cross-donations by creating a database of all those in need of transplant as paired with loved ones willing to donate.