The Waiting List Nation: An Exploration of the Kidney Crisis
A multidisciplinary thought-leadership panel on the drivers, failures and solutions of the kidney transplant crisis in South Africa and beyond — and what they mean for your patients.
You need to be registered to access this video. Please follow the prompts to do so.
About This Webinar
South Africa has one of the lowest kidney transplant rates in the world — fewer than three people per million receive a transplant each year, against a global benchmark of fourteen. Behind that number are thousands of patients on a waiting list that moves slowly, if at all: people on dialysis for years, families with willing donors who cannot give, and clinicians who sense that something should be happening differently but are not always sure what or how.
The reasons are not simple. South Africa carries a disease burden that no international guideline was designed for, a public health system whose dialysis capacity has not grown since 1994, and a clinical pathway from sick patient to transplanted patient that passes through too many unsupported decision points.
And yet the science has been moving. South Africa has now performed the first ABO-incompatible kidney transplant on the African continent, reported the first donation after circulatory death kidney transplant in Africa, and published a formal call for a kidney paired exchange programme. The tools exist. The waiting list has not responded. This panel brings together transplant specialists, nephrologists, a critical care physician and a transplant co-ordinator for a candid, research-led discussion on what is truly limiting South Africa’s kidney transplant programme — and what can be done at every level of care to shift the trajectory.
This session is now available to watch on demand. Originally broadcast as a live interactive panel on 7 May 2026, the recording captures the full multidisciplinary dialogue — designed to generate the kind of cross-speciality conversation that changes practice not just in the transplant unit, but in outpatient clinics, ICUs and consulting rooms across the country where the pathway either opens or closes.
- Describe the scale and complexity of end-stage renal disease in South Africa, including the disease drivers that make our patient population uniquely challenging
- Understand new transplant pathways now available in South Africa — including ABO-incompatible donation and donation after circulatory death — and identify which patients may benefit
- Recognise the systemic and clinical barriers to organ donation and transplantation, and understand the role non-transplant practitioners play in addressing them
- Identify when a patient should be referred for organ donor assessment and understand what that referral pathway looks like in practice
- Leave with practical tools to play your part in closing the referral gap, whether you work in primary care, general medicine, critical care or a specialist clinic
Renal Transplant Resources
For a comprehensive list of resources relating to transplant and palliative care, please access the document below.
Meet the Expert Panel
Four specialists, four perspectives — one shared mission: closing the kidney transplant gap in sub-Saharan Africa. Click any card to read the full biography.
