Shmuel Binder interviewed Renewal’s Rabbi Menachem Friedman - The Lakewood Scoop

have with us so Eminem Friedman from renewal the organization which facilitates kidney transplants which has been extremely successful since founding and we have a special day over here today Robert Friedman yes yes celebrating you you hit a 999 kidney kidney uh donations on Friday and today you broke a thousand one thousand and one and one thousand and two as far as we understand correct that is correct yes that's been fantastic amazing can you tell us a little bit about your history and your experience with renewal I know you've been there for quite some time well it's about renewal now 15 years almost um we've grown from doing a handful of transplants a year back then to now we're almost at 100 transplants a year and the the experience has been phenomenal I cannot think of a better job to do to be able to help people and help people that are willing to give of themselves in such a generous way and to be able to help people in such a real way people that are getting your kidney transplant are Baruch Hashem going back to normal lives afterwards so it's uh it's a it's a extremely rewarding this job amazing amazing and uh I I know I'm probably not alone in noticing that that over the years there has been a an increase in the amount of publicized transplant seeking donors and seeking assistance uh how many tests are you doing per year per month now versus how many how many you were doing back then so whereas in the past we used to put out an ad and we got a couple of responses to each ad for a person that needed a kidney today we can do an awareness event and have 100 200 people show up to get tested yeah and the way that we do testing now is very different than we used to in the past it was just getting their blood type today we're actually doing swabs at these drives we're at the drive we're able to get their DNA level for matching so it's extremely uh sophisticated level of matching we're doing now compared to back then and uh so it's a lot has changed over the years so the testing itself is even becoming more accurate facilitating and making it easier and quicker to be able to find the correct match that's wonderful to hear why the need though for so many uh for so many donors why do you have the need to test and swap so many people great question so back in the day the way we used to match was if you were the same blood type and there was no contradiction to transplant there's no antibodies then the transplant was a go and everyone was very happy over the years we realized that there's so much better matches we could make and we you know we expanded on that and about a year and a half ago we realized that studies show that if you match on certain markers in the blood that the kidneys will last much longer than they used to match so whereas we're just finding a basic Blood match now we're trying to find such good matches so we're trying to and we're testing so that we're able to find those amazing perfect matches so in the pack back in the day if you were ready to donate a kidney there was a very good chance you would be able to donate your kidney today it's there's a much less likelihood chance that you'll donate just because you step forward doesn't mean that you'll be a donor um you have to be that great for an excellent match in order for us to get to make that phone call to you to ask you to be the donor wow that's unbelievable so so your your success your success at finding people that are willing and encouraging people to donate their kidneys has actually given you more Choice which is enabling and facilitating better matches which is healthier people in the in the long run that's really amazing to hear what else apart from the apart from facilitating the actual donation the medical the medical uh needs surrounding it what else does renewal do aside from matching donor to recipient right so the matching is obviously a very important part and we put a tremendous amount of which we just built a new soft a whole new software to be able to do it better matches um but renewal actually supports the donor every step of the way from that first phone call giving them in a no pressure way give them the information about donation um helping facilit like Logistics around a transplant and then after the transplant we've covered their loss of wages travel expenses so those are things that we do um on top of just the match in addition for the patient and a lot of these patients would never get transplanted had they not have renewal and the reason is because they're not in great shape to begin with and the hospitals are looking for the easy patients to transplant generally and because we're able to find living donors for these patients very often so the hospital is willing to put the extra effort in to get them clear then to do what is necessary so there's so much more than just the match that goes into making the transfer month happened in addition to working with Hospital relationships these relationships are crucial um I'm here actually in NYU right now you can't television but I'm in the big assignment room today's transplant is a man that found out that is getting a kidney less than a week ago and what happened was that there was someone else that was supposed to get the kidney and then the last minute unfortunately he this case it was extremely complicated the hospital decided they're not going to clear her for transplants um because we have that relation relationship with NYU you know we went to the drawing board quickly found another recipient and we were able to fill that slot the daughter didn't have to change his schedule which is a huge deal the donors they can go you know summer plans and whatever work plans and family plans so we were able to still keep that date artificial wow unbelievable that that sound that does sound like it it's the result of relationships that were cultivated over many years and a lot of hard work that's wonderful so you mentioned a little bit about this and in terms of finding additional markers and things you feel then that the the testing process and the entire the entire process through which you're connecting donor to recipient has improved over the years if so how can you tell us a little how how you've seen the Improvement so um so this is the significant thing that changed was that they found that patients that stopped so after someone takes up after someone has a transplant they need to take immune suppressants so the body doesn't reject the organ and then unfortunately sometimes people get sick after transplant and they need to stop immunosuppressants and very often they'll reject those organs at that point so they were studying those that did not reject and they were wondering why did some reject when some did not reject and they if they found that what they all had in common the ones that did not reject was they have certain markers that they matched on so we um so this is like the most Cutting Edge matching that's going on like only a handful of hospitals in the United States it's actually matching on this level but we said you know we we have and Claudius role that's stepping forward to donate let's you know let's try to let's try to find this level of matches and Barca we've gotten a bunch of the transplants lately on this level and this potential for these transplants to last way longer than they used to you know it's still new but it doesn't it doesn't put the patient in a worse situation in the past we're still looking at the old the markers but we're adding on a whole new level of markers so um we believe that renewal that this is um the future in transplants and that's why we're putting so much effort into this unbelievable a whole new level of Chess said so for people that are watching out there and I'm sure that there are a lot of people who really feel the importance and understand the importance of this organization it's kind of hard not to what's your main overhead and if people want to donate to Renewal what's the main overhead what's your main challenge what is your what what are your your basic expenses that people can help towards so our budget consists of having we have a you know making transplants happen is a very Hands-On job it's not the it's not just a phone call and making it happen I'm gonna be um this Thursday in Chicago with the donor profession so we actually are with the donor you know at their testing at the surgery so it's a very uh you know it's a customer's service but like our next level so um having a staff of a dedicated staff is extremely crucial it's not the you know sometimes people say like you know besides staff what is your no renewals renewal staff is crucial to making transplants happen to saving lives on top of that we've covered donors loss of wages travel expenses babysitting help cleaning help during recovery um hotel stay if they're traveling so that's a those are huge expenses including all these swabs that we're doing which is thousands a year these are all expenses that renewal picks up these are not Insurance unfunded renewal does not get any funding from insurance any government funding it's all funded by client Israel stepping forward so um your dollars are going to save lives so that's uh you know if anyone wants to know they can you know we have this thing actually called circle of life you know we don't talk about it often enough but maybe today on the thousands transplant it's a good idea to mention it where you can give a donation you go on our website you click on Circle renewal.org you go to Circle Of Life um you can give a donation any amount that you choose that amount will be charged every time we have a transplant so you can have a small part or a you know it's the part and every single transplant as it happens you can get two dollars eighteen dollars whatever it is nothing beautiful that's such a beautiful idea that really is a beautiful idea that's terrific can can you I think I'm gonna get over to head over to Renewal and and consider that for myself also actually uh is kidney donation is kidney donation for for everyone no kidney donation is not for everyone and I'll say it here publicly I did not donate my kidney um you know it's not it's not very popular but it's not for everyone you know if someone is hesitant they're scared of the you know pain surgery um they have hesitations or whatever let's say someone has a family member that might have um kidney issues and they you know those are things they need to work through before they're going to go for donation renewal is not here grabbing everyone's kidney or asking people to donate their kidneys you know we're putting the word out there that there's a need if it's you feel it's something that you can do we are here to help make the process as smooth and as easy as possible but it is not for everyone but it is very doable um it's amazing like the talking to the donors and hearing their stories why they donated um most of them like see it as not a big deal I see it as a big deal it is a big deal nation is life-saving it's amazing but it's not for everyone not for everyone so it's so it's not only about matching donor to recipients it's about matching donor finding the appropriate donor also which is something that you do in a in a sensitive and skilled way that's our goal yes very good terrific well let me wish you a Mazel Tov so since you're getting faster and faster I guess uh I don't know when renewal was formed but it took until now to get to a thousand when are we gonna hit two thousand we're here for those that need and you know hopefully this message are you putting out anyone out there that needs our help will reach out um don't wait the people shouldn't wait till they're on the dialysis they should as soon as they find out that their kidney function is going down give us a call where we'll guide you and hold your hand every every step of the way wonderful thank you so much you should have a lot of us love and Mazel with this oh man thank you thank you for doing this take care