Parents Waiting to Donate Kidney Each to Ailing Sons

The days pass slowly for Susana and Angel Gurtman. But they may be slipping by all too quickly for the Argentine couple’s two sons.

Eduardo and Jorge Gurtman have both suffered total kidney failure because of systemic lupus erythematosus, a skin disease that can also affect connective tissues and organs.

Susana Gurtman is waiting to donate one of her kidneys to Eduardo, 22. Angel Gurtman is prepared to have one of his transplanted into Jorge, 21.

Since last summer the family has been living in a Canoga Park condominium borrowed from a friend while they wait for the green light from doctors who will perform the transplant operations at the UCLA Medical Center.

But the operations have been put on hold while physicians seek to stabilize the condition of gravely ill Jorge Gurtman, who has been hospitalized for more than 75 days because of lupus complications since his arrival in the United States.

The ordeal has drained the family of its finances. But not of its hope.

“I am not afraid of the operation,” said Susana Gurtman, 46. “I want to do it as soon as possible. I know this is the only way to give our boys back their health.”

Jorge Gurtman was stricken with the disease at age 12 and turned to a dialysis machine three years ago when his kidneys failed. He came to the United States in April with his mother in search of a specialized kidney treatment called continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis.

The treatment, which utilizes small bags that collect fluids from stomach catheters, replaces machine-controlled hemodialysis blood purification and allows the user to be mobile. But the procedure is infrequently attempted in Argentina.

When the process proved successful with Jorge, Angel Gurtman accompanied Eduardo to the United States last August to start the treatment on him and begin preparations for the unique double transplant operations.

Since then, however, Jorge Gurtman has been beset by immune system problems that are complications of lupus. On New Year’s Day, he was admitted to UCLA Medical Center for the ninth time--this time suffering from pneumonia.

Medical costs have added up at the rate of $1,500 per day. Last month, after selling property in Argentina to pay off $15,000 of the bill, the Gurtmans reluctantly turned to friends for help.

Christmas gifts and donations allowed them to pay another $25,000 to the medical center. A second $25,000 payment is due in 45 days.

The situation is one laden with irony for Angel Gurtman, who is a medical doctor specializing in endocrinology at a Argentine state-run 600-bed hospital on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

There, hospitalization costs are covered by the state, which pays Gurtman a salary equivalent to about $200 a week. Since he is unlicensed to practice medicine in this country and cannot do work of any kind with his tourist visa, Gurtman can only watch. And wait.

“We are very grateful for what the doctors here are doing for our sons,” Angel Gurtman said Thursday outside Jorge’s hospital room. “We have no problem with the treatments. Just the economic part. We have no insurance of any kind for here. We have no income at this point.”

Gurtman said Melissa Klaskin, a clinical social worker for UCLA Medical Center, helped him set up the Jorge and Eduardo Gurtman Benevolent Fund (P.O. Box 7500, Canoga Park, 91304) last month. So far, about $1,100 in donations have been received.

He said a payment schedule has been approved by the medical center that will allow Eduardo’s transplant operation to be planned once the second $25,000 installment for Jorge’s hospital costs are paid.

Shawney Fine, a clinical nurse specialist in the medical center’s pediatric nephrology department, affirmed that the family’s plight is serious.

“It’s very tragic to have one child ill with lupus. But to have two with this horrible disease is just too much for anyone,” Fine said. “It’s probably even harder on Dr. Gurtman because he’s a physician and he sees his boys in such need.”

According to Fine, Eduardo Gurtman, who fell victim to the disease when he was 19, is in stable condition and is remaining at home in Canoga Park while physicians in Westwood begin tests on Susana Gurtman for his transplant operation.

Fine, whose husband, Dr. Richard Fine, is chief of the medical center’s pediatric nephrology department, said it is rare for two brothers both to have lupus. She said UCLA doctors had never heard of a case in which a father and mother plan to each donate a kidney to two sons who have suffered renal failure.

Because of the uniqueness of the two cases, the medical center has agreed to contribute to the predicted $100,000 cost of the two transplant operations and set up a gradual repayment schedule for the family, said spokesman Richard Elbaum.

Angel Gurtman acknowledged that it may be more than a year before Jorge’s lupus-aggravated antibodies are once again under control. A transplant will not be attempted until there is hope that the young man’s antibodies will not quickly cause him to reject his father’s donated kidney.

His two sons “are like twins” in their devotion to each other, he said. Because of that, Eduardo’s morale has deteriorated as Jorge’s condition has worsened.

“I miss my family back in Argentina and my practice and the doctors at my hospital,” Gurtman said. “But the health of our boys is more important. We have to try.”