Why Do Some People Agree To Donate Their Kidney To A Relative?

If someone has kidney failure, they must receive treatment because the body cannot live without at least one kidney. If both kidneys fail, the blood cannot be cleaned and wastes will build up to toxic levels.

One treatment is dialysis, but this involves three days in hospital every week, hooked up to a dialysis machine. This interferes with normal life and most people on dialysis would opt for a transplant of a healthy kidney. This involves an operation, a pretty serious one, but at the end of it, if all goes well, they can live a more active life and don't need dialysis any more.

The trouble is that there is a big shortage of kidneys. Far more people need kidney transplants than there are organs available. The closest match for donated organs is a relative and healthy relatives of kidney failure victims sometimes opt to give up one of their kidneys to restore the quality of life of their loved one. This involves them having an operation to remove one of their kidneys and the recipient having an operation to receive the kidney.

When the operations are successful, the families are delighted but the risk is high – either the donor or the recipient can suffer complications.

The reasons for donating a kidney to a relative include such banal things as actually liking that relative and the desire to help them if at all possible. Also, a kidney has to match the body it is going to be implanted into. You cannot simply take any kidney and give it to another person at random, there is always the chance of it being rejected, and then two people have lost out.

I guess its the love for the other person.  It seems the recipient of the kidney recovers a lot faster than the giver.  You really only need one kidney to survive., so giving one would be a life change for the person giving it.