Hermanus said he had been diagnosed with kidney failure in 2016 as a result of acute diabetes and had been on dialysis since then, for 4½ hours at a time and three times a week, during which his blood was drained to filter out toxic waste materials and then pumped back into his body.
“My own family all suffer from diabetes and hypertension-related illnesses so they could not help.
“So I thought, I am known in the community, let me try through my Facebook site.”
The divorced father of three daughters, a mechanical engineering lecturer at Port Elizabeth College, has been involved for many years with the New Apostolic Church choir.
He was a manager with various Eastern Cape rugby teams from 1999, and from 2015 to 2017 he managed the national schools rugby side.
He has also worked as a teacher for 34 years at various schools and colleges in Nelson Mandela Bay.
He said he was deeply grateful for the positive response to his call for help and hugely excited.
“It’s now a matter of waiting for the different donors to go to the pathologist to have their blood tested and the compatibility with my blood checked.
“I don’t know yet how the lockdown is going to affect things, but I believe this is an essential service so I hope it can go forward soon even during this period.”
Hermanus’s daughter Nikita, 21, said because of the coronavirus pandemic her father was carefully checked and his temperature taken each time he went for his dialysis at the renal unit in Newton Park.
She said she was very happy at the response her father’s post had prompted.
“Before his illness he was always out coaching rugby or at choir and this is a chance he could get better again so it’s wonderful news.”
Potential kidney donors come forward after desperate Facebook plea
Image: Supplied
Every cloud has a silver lining.
In the midst of the dark days of the coronavirus lockdown, northern areas’ teacher, choir member and rugby man Relton Hermanus has had an overwhelming response to his desperate plea for a new kidney.
Malabar resident Hermanus, 56, said on Monday he had posted the plea on his Facebook site a week ago.
“I didn’t want to do it on social media but it will be years before I get to the top of the kidney donation waiting list and I do not have much time.
“I got a very positive response in terms of supportive messages and about 20 people have volunteered to donate me a kidney.
“Now it’s a long process whereby each one of these volunteers needs to get his blood tested to see if its of the same type and compatible with mine.
“Once the most suitable donor is identified, we would go down to Cape Town for further tests and then the operation.”
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Hermanus said he had been diagnosed with kidney failure in 2016 as a result of acute diabetes and had been on dialysis since then, for 4½ hours at a time and three times a week, during which his blood was drained to filter out toxic waste materials and then pumped back into his body.
“My own family all suffer from diabetes and hypertension-related illnesses so they could not help.
“So I thought, I am known in the community, let me try through my Facebook site.”
The divorced father of three daughters, a mechanical engineering lecturer at Port Elizabeth College, has been involved for many years with the New Apostolic Church choir.
He was a manager with various Eastern Cape rugby teams from 1999, and from 2015 to 2017 he managed the national schools rugby side.
He has also worked as a teacher for 34 years at various schools and colleges in Nelson Mandela Bay.
He said he was deeply grateful for the positive response to his call for help and hugely excited.
“It’s now a matter of waiting for the different donors to go to the pathologist to have their blood tested and the compatibility with my blood checked.
“I don’t know yet how the lockdown is going to affect things, but I believe this is an essential service so I hope it can go forward soon even during this period.”
Hermanus’s daughter Nikita, 21, said because of the coronavirus pandemic her father was carefully checked and his temperature taken each time he went for his dialysis at the renal unit in Newton Park.
She said she was very happy at the response her father’s post had prompted.
“Before his illness he was always out coaching rugby or at choir and this is a chance he could get better again so it’s wonderful news.”
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Nurse drives through night so patient can get lifesaving kidney
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