The Professor Donal O’Donoghue, Global Kidney Policy Forum

Slim Slama is an Internal Medicine specialist with an interest in non-communicable disease management. After graduating from Geneva University Medical School in 1998, he worked as a clinician for 17 years at the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG), Switzerland. Drawing on his clinical expertise and his keen interest for global health, he contributed to the creation of the HUG‘s Division of International and Humanitarian Medicine and to the development of global health as an academic discipline at the University of Geneva. In this position, he established several partnerships with low and middle incomes institutions in the prevention and control of NCD.  

Prior to joining WHO headquarters, Dr Slama started at WHO in 2014, at the Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, based in Cairo, Egypt. Successively, assuming the positions of Medical Officer and then of Regional Adviser, he spent 7.5 years in charge of Noncommunicable Diseases Prevention and Management Units, in the Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health Division (NMH).  

 During his tenure at WHO EMRO, Dr Slama provided strategic and technical support to the twenty-two Member States of the region, supporting them in scaling up their efforts to better prevent and control noncommunicable diseases (NCD). From the development of multisectoral NCD action plans to the integration of NCD in primary health care, he covered a very large portfolio and progressively contributed in building the NCD team at EMRO. Part of his work was dedicated to strengthening WHO normative and technical support to countries affected by humanitarian crises with the aim to improve NCD inclusion across the various phases of emergencies. In this regard, he developed and deployed in 2017, in collaboration with various humanitarian stakeholders and WHO colleagues the first WHO NCD emergency kit. 

I had no idea I was at high risk for kidney disease until I received my diagnosis at 34.  

The doctor said my creatinine levels were dangerously high and my kidneys had deteriorated to the point of 75% – which meant that it was irreversible. My first doctor told me I had to go for dialysis immediately and let me add, in the worst possible way, but after seeking more medical advice, I held off for a few months, thanks to another doctor who was very kind and patient.  

 A lot of people didn’t understand how I had gotten ill so quickly. I was fine, I was playing sports, back then I was a radio DJ, I ran the number one radio program in the country. No one this mattered as like many people, I neglected going for yearly check-ups.  

Everything came to a shuddering halt. When I started my dialysis in February 2002, I weighed about 86kg. By the end of the year, I dropped down to about 70kg. The illness hit me quite badly, both physically and mentally, to a stage where I couldn’t walk 100m without pausing. This continued for 10 long years and by the end of that period, I’ve been poked about 4000 times with a needle. Now, I have a genuine fear of needles and can’t even see it happening on tv or to anyone else.  

In 2012, my wife donated a kidney, and this changed my life drastically. This second lease on my life makes me realise that together all of us can do more for others.  

And while contact sports like football are ruled out, I now go to the gym, swim, run and cycle every day. I try to keep myself as healthy as I can now by eating right and doing all I can to keep myself active.  

In 2002, there were no patient organisations that I could join, and I felt isolated as a result. This encouraged me to speak to other patients when I returned to hospital for check-ups. Now, I am the WHO chairman for patient safety in Malaysia, a member of the National Patient Safety Council and part of the British Medical Journal international patient panel. It is my privilege to serve the public at large and educate Healthcare on the necessity of engaging the 7 billion plus people in the world to help the 50 million healthcare practitioners do their jobs. Healthcare needs help and there are so many impassioned patients who are willing to join and assist. We will continue to knock. 

Dr. Ong is a senior consultant nephrologist and the head of Department of Medicine at Penang Hospital, Malaysia. He is also the current Head of Nephrology Services at the Ministry of Health Malaysia. He graduated in 1987 from University Malaya and obtained his membership from the Royal College of Physicians United Kingdom in 1993 and Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh in 2006. He is a certified nephrologist since 1996 and has been actively involved in training and research.

Dr Amrish Krishnan is a Nephrologist based in Fiji. He completed his undergraduate medical training in Fiji in 2006, and after serving in resource-constrained rural health centers, joined the Masters in Internal Medicine training program (Fiji National University), which he completed in 2013. Dr Krishnan then went on to train in New Zealand for two years, where he pursued his interest in Nephrology. He returned to Fiji in 2015, and through the support of the International Society of Nephrology’s Sister Renal Center program, became Fiji’s first vocationally registered Nephrologist. He helped establish dialysis for Acute Kidney Injury in Fiji’s Intensive Care Units in 2016, and in 2017 Dr Krishnan was appointed by the Government to design and establish Fiji’s first public system dialysis center. Dr Krishnan has spent the last 4 years working in the public system, and various private hospitals. He is currently the Clinical Director of The Kidney Hub, a specialty hospital that provides treatment to Fijians and Pacific Islanders with Chronic Kidney Disease and End Stage Kidney Disease. He has a passion for health advocacy and education, health leadership, and addressing the increasing burden of noncommunicable diseases in the Pacific.