Local woman goes public in quest for kidney transplant

Time is running out for 57-year-old Whitehorse resident Julia Broeren, who has been on dialysis for the past four years after her kidneys failed.

Time is running out for 57-year-old Whitehorse resident Julia Broeren, who has been on dialysis for the past four years after her kidneys failed.

“I have nowhere to turn, and that’s why I’m going public,” Broeren of her appeal for a kidney donor

“I need a kidney transplant .... I’m in desperate need, otherwise that’s it for me.”

Last week, Broeren contacted the Star to help find a suitable donor after her friends and family turned her down.

“I’ve asked family and they looked at me and walked away and haven’t talked to me since,” she said. “What else can I do? They just shied away from me.”

Four times a day, Broeren must undergo dialysis, she said, and doctors in Vancouver informed her that a transplant is what she needs.

“I’m in pain from my head to my toes now because everything is starting to shut down,” Broeren said.

Potential donors would have blood type O – the same as Broeren’s – and would have to undergo further evaluation.

Further tissue typing and cross-matching tests would be conducted, said Broeren, as well as a general health and psychological assessments.

As of June 2010, there were 262 British Columbians waiting for a kidney transplant from a deceased donor, according to the Kidney Foundation of Canada’s website.

Because Broeren is not from British Columbia, doctors in Vancouver have told her B.C. residents would take precedence and that she might have better luck finding a living donor.

Since the first living donor kidney transplant performed in B.C. in 1976, 862 living donor transplants have occurred, and of these, just six have been from a “living anonymous donor”.