Yemen Hospital Performs 164 Kidney Transplants Amid War

A young girl named Noor Majid is smiling in her hospital bed in Taiz, Yemen, recovering from surgery that will change her life. The 10-year-old was born with a hole in her heart that left her constantly exhausted and struggling to breathe.

Noor is one of 110 children who received free heart surgery in just six days at the Cardiac and Vascular Diseases and Kidney Transplant Center. The medical camp brought together doctors from Qatar, France, and across Yemen to perform complex pediatric heart surgeries that would have been impossible for most families to afford abroad.

But this single week of surgeries represents just a fraction of what this facility has accomplished. Since opening its doors in July 2021, the center has performed 164 kidney transplants, 1,450 open-heart surgeries, nearly 4,000 vascular operations, and 4,340 catheterization procedures.

The impact on patients goes far beyond medical care. Operations that would cost $20,000 abroad plus travel and accommodation now cost patients just $2,000 in Taiz. Local businesses and benefactors cover the remaining $3,000, making lifesaving treatment accessible to ordinary Yemenis.

Dr. Nader al-Hammadi, a resident physician at the center, estimates that at least 1,000 patients received care who otherwise would have traveled abroad. Some procedures, like minimally invasive heart surgery, aren't even available in other countries, bringing expatriates back to Yemen for treatment.

The facility's emergence in Taiz feels particularly miraculous. The city has endured siege and shelling throughout Yemen's ongoing war, with its health system among the first to collapse. Yet here stands a world-class medical center performing groundbreaking procedures.

Last month, the team quietly achieved another milestone: Yemen's first three liver transplants. Professor Abudar al-Ganadi, who founded the center, is moving cautiously but hopefully with the new program.

The Ripple Effect

This single facility is reshaping what's possible for healthcare across Yemen. Yemeni surgeons are gaining invaluable experience performing complex procedures at home rather than losing that expertise to hospitals abroad. Each successful surgery builds confidence and capability for the next.

The center is training a new generation of medical professionals in advanced techniques. Young doctors like al-Hammadi are learning to perform procedures that once seemed impossible in Yemen, creating a foundation for sustainable medical excellence.

For Professor al-Ganadi, who studied in Russia and returned to Yemen in 2009, the center represents a dream 12 years in the making. His patience and determination created something that seemed impossible: world-class medical care in one of the world's most challenging environments.

Noor Majid's smile in that hospital bed tells the story of hundreds of patients whose lives have been saved or transformed. What started as one doctor's dream has become a medical revolution that's giving Yemen's sickest patients something they desperately needed: hope and healing at home.