November 9, 2004
 
Contact:    Yehudis Bogatz
                    800 SAVE A LIFE (800-728-3254)
                    or (310) 779-9655

Save the Life of a Child!
Los Angeles Girl Needs Kidney To Survive: 
Parents Searching for Compatible Donor

The parents of an Israeli child born with a sole, malfunctioning kidney are in a desperate race against time to find a compatible donor who can save their five year-old child’s life.

Chana Bogatz was already critically ill when she was born.  Diagnosed with a diseased kidney, Chana began dialysis at the early age of three months.   At ten months, the tiny vessels used for dialysis had been exhausted and could no longer sustain dialysis treatment.   With Chana’s life at stake, her devastated parents left their home in Israel, within one day’s notice, and headed for America, in the hopes of receiving life saving emergency treatment.  In April 2001, she received an infant cadaver renal transplant at Stanford Medical Center in Palo Alto, California.   An infant donor’s blood vessels are very tiny and there is a high probability that they will clog, therefore, the procedure was considered a “bridge transplant”;  a temporary measure that would buy more time for Chana as she continued to wait for a more compatible kidney.  This temporary measure enabled Chana to continue living without dialysis.   Shortly after receiving the transplant that saved her young life, Chana was placed back on the transplant list.   A year later, as anticipated, the kidney failed, but the elapsed time had allowed for Chana’s vessels to grow.  Once again she was able to receive the life saving dialysis treatment.   

Chana has again reached a critical stage in her treatment as dialysis could fail at any moment.   Her physicians have told her parents that she is in end stage renal disease and that without a kidney transplant she will die.  Unfortunately, Chana’s parents, Yehudis and Mordechai Bogatz, are not compatible donors, and they must look outside the family for a donor.

Ever since Chana’s first donated kidney failed, her parents knew that moving up on the donor list was critical for their daughter.  The deterioration of her condition has spurred them to make a public plea on their daughter’s behalf.
“We are desperately hoping that someone will come forward.  Our daughter’s life hangs in the balance,” said Yehudis.

Suitable donors must be between eighteen and forty-five years old, have type O blood, and be in good health.  There is no cost to be screened and the donor’s medical expenses will be fully covered.

For more information on how to help Chana or be tested for compatibility as a kidney donor for the child, call 800 SAVE A LIFE (800-728-3254) or visit www.savechana.org.

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