The second episode of the four-part docuseries, Transplant Stories, airs tonight on Knowledge Network and St. Paul’s Hospital is prominently featured.
You’ll meet a St. Paul’s patient desperate for a heart transplant, along with another patient, a man on dialysis whose sister flies from Colombia to see if she can be a living kidney donor to him.
The series follows the personal life-and-death drama behind the many organ transplants performed each year in Canada and British Columbia.
The first episode, currently streaming on www.knowledge.ca/transplant-stories across Canada, profiles a corneal surgery that takes place at Mount Saint Joseph Hospital. It follows patient Marcela, nearly blind due to a disease she was born with that has caused her vision to deteriorate throughout her life. The transplant could reverse her sight loss.
The series was produced in partnership with Providence as well as Vancouver Coastal Health, BC Transplant and others.
Throughout the episodes, transplant patients and their families and friends share their personal highs and lows of the experience.
Unsentimental stories tell the realities of transplant
Each episode profiles several people desperate for the call that could save their lives. These are gritty, unsentimental stories that depict the joy of receiving a life-saving organ and the crushing disappointment of missing out.
You’ll see St. Paul’s Hospital’s transplant doctors including Dr. Anson Cheung and Dr. Mustafa Toma along with cardiac transplant nurses like Wynne Chiu or the renal team, including Dr. Jag Gill, Dr. John Gill and Dr. Brian Mayson as they care for patients in kidney failure.
Currently, there are more than 600 British Columbians waiting for an organ transplant – and a second chance at life.
The miracle of transplant
For Wynne Chiu, Clinical Nurse Specialist, Heart Failure and Transplantation, “It was an absolute honour to participate. We take for granted that transplants are done now in modern medicine. But the miracle that it exists never ceases to amaze me. This series really highlights that.”
The series is emotional and revealing thanks to unprecedented access the filmmakers were given to Providence and VCH operating rooms, medical teams, patients and their families, to give viewers the full picture of what is involved in organ transplant.
The series is directed by local filmmaker Sheona McDonald, for Vancouver producer Omnifilm Entertainment, in association with Knowledge Network.
To register as an organ donor: https://register.transplant.bc.ca/ Make sure to have your Personal Health Number with you.
If you think you’ve registered, but want to make sure, visit: https://register.transplant.bc.ca/verification
View the trailer for the powerful series.
