In Saudi Arabia, one daughter is being hailed for her bravery and selflessness in saving her father’s life. Twenty-three-year-old Wala signed up to be the anonymous kidney donor to her father, Mohammed Ismail Ashour Al-Saigh, who was suffering from life-threatening kidney failure and rushed into the operating room at the Armed Forces Hospital in Tabuk for a kidney transplant.
Mohammed was not told who his donor was before the transplant was carried out but quickly realized that it was his daughter who saved his life when he came out of the operating room. As soon as he came out of anesthesia, Mohammed saw Wala on the bed next to him and it was then he understood that she had donated her kidney to him.
“I lived the suffering of my father for three years with him after both his kidneys failed and he started having dialysis three times a week. He was told that he had to have a kidney transplant if he wanted to live longer,” Wala said in a recent article by Saudi Gazette. The young woman explained that her fears for her father increased every time he said goodbye to them while going in for the dialysis.
“I saw tears in his eyes and my heart broke,” she said. She then decided to check his medical reports one day when he was away performing dialysis and then discussed with her brothers how to proceed. She went with her siblings to perform the medical tests needed to become a potential donor and discovered that her tissues were identical to her father's, making her an ideal donor.
Right before the operation, Wala spoke to her father saying that all would be well soon as a donor had been located who did not want to be identified but her father soon figured out it was her after seeing her lying in the hospital bed. Wala explained that as soon as the realization hit, her father teared up.
For Wala, her actions were the least she felt she could do for her father who she explained had spent his whole life taking care of them.
“It is time that we repay you for all the good things you have done for us. You have brought us up properly, built a beautiful house for us and guarded us with your life […] I am extremely happy that my kidney suited my father and that I have donated it to him,” she said.
Earlier this summer, a Saudi nurse named Abeer bint Atallah Al Enezi was also hailed as a hero after she donated part of her liver to a little girl who she had never even met. In a statement to Okaz newspaper, Al Enezi said she hoped her story will motivate others to help patients in dire need of organ donations.
