News

The ISN Sister Renal Center Tanzania-Canada partnership between the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC) in Tanzania and the Queen’s University in Canada was awarded the Schrier Award in 2019 in recognition of the significant progress made through the collaboration. This pair availed of additional ISN Programs to build a strong and durable partnership, achieving successful and sustainable outcomes:

• The Program funded Dr. Kilonzo to complete a two-year ISN Fellowship at the University of Cape Town. The training equipped Dr. Kilonzo to help set up an acute PD and Clinic Care program at KCMC which eventually became part of the Saving Young Lives Project. Trainees Dr. Suda Ghosh and Dr. Huda Akrabi received ISN Fellowship funding in subsequent years further contributing to the strength of the center.
• A hemodialysis program was launched that has expanded from an initial 7 chairs to 40 chairs in 2020 and is now active 24 hours a day, seven days per week.
• Dr. Kilonzo and Dr. Yeates, alongside other young nephrologists, founded the Nephrology Society of Tanzania (NESOT) increasing lobbying power to petition local government to provide ongoing resources and actively promoting the need for improved kidney health in Tanzania.
• An annual continuing education program for nephrology nurses was developed.
• An ISN Clinical Research grant was awarded to KCMC to support an ongoing research study to identify risk factors and outcomes of community-acquired AKI in adults and children.
• KCMC will shortly begin a Sister Transplant Centers partnership with Manchester University in the United Kingdom aiming to build capacity for living donor transplants at KCMC over the coming years.

Having graduated, KCMC is now planning to form a trio to support a new emerging center in Northern Tanzania. Dr. Karen Yeates comments: “We honestly feel that the SRC funding has had a real and measurable impact on lives saved in Tanzania through the successive and systematic building of the nephrology program though the SRC partnership.”