Amsterdam - After five years of waiting in vain for a donor, Dutch kidney patient Adrie de Graaf took drastic action to call attention to his plight: He began placing newspaper ads. "Wanted: Samaritan kidney donor, O-positive," the ads read. Then de Graaf, 63, waited again.
This time, his appeal not only helped him to find a potential donor, but it also drew attention to the wider policy issue in the Netherlands about the rising incidence of "live" organ donors.
Through the ads and then thanks to an appearance by de Graaf on television, his appeal found the heart of a 37-year-old woman, who was moved.
"When I watched him on television I just thought I had to do something," said Maggy van Manen of the northern town of Drachten.
Now the two are undergoing a series of blood and other medical tests to determine whether van Manen's kidney and de Graaf's body organism are compatible enough for a transplant. De Graaf is hopeful: "I might be getting a new kidney by the end of this year."
De Graaf's public appeal for a kidney has drawn the focus again on the issue of the shortage of donated organs in the country, and on whether the country's laws concerning the donation of "live" organs need reforming.
Pauline Plieijter, spokeswoman of the national kidney foundation Nierstichting, told the German Press Agency
