The ‘kidney priest’: how a cleric’s organ donation sparked a global campaign to register more donors
- Reverend Father Davis Chiramel, the first priest known to have donated an organ, encouraged the gift of giving at a talk in Hong Kong
- The number of patients who received kidney transplants in the city dropped by 50 per cent in 2019, signalling an urgent need for more donors
Seated in flowing robes, beaming through a snowy beard and circled by a gaggle of children attempting to pile onto his lap, Reverend Father Davis Chiramel exuded a remarkably Santa-like aura while waiting to give his speech.
The Indian clergyman’s physical similarities to Father Christmas may end there, given his lanky frame and South Asian heritage, but the “Kidney Priest” is considered just as much a symbol of giving.
“As a priest, I preach about Jesus sacrificing himself for others, but I have to practice it, too,” Chiramel says. “Ten years ago when Gopinathan could not find a kidney donor, I made the choice to donate my kidney. No thinking about it. I just did it.”
Although documentation for the transplant’s approval took seven months, the procedure itself took a matter of hours, and Chiramel was discharged from hospital within three days.