22 Years, 15,000 Hours: Muslim Father's UK’s Longest Transplant Wait

In what has become one of Britain's most protracted cases on the NHS transplant waiting list, Amjad Rabbani, a 57-year-old Muslim father from Ealing, West London, is enduring a 22-year wait for a life-changing kidney. Listed for a transplant since 2003, Mr. Rabbani’s journey highlights the critical shortage of organ donors, particularly within minority ethnic communities, and the immense toll the wait takes on patients and their families, Daily Dazzling Dawn realized.

Amjad, a man of South Asian heritage who has lived in the UK for most of his life, currently depends on a rigorous schedule of hospital haemodialysis three evenings a week. His religious faith, Islam, remains the bedrock of his perseverance.

"My faith, Islam, has got me through," Amjad told reporters. "As a Muslim, I believe everything comes from God, this is part of the test of life. When God wants it to happen, it will happen. It is my faith I am relying on."

A Life Defined by Dialysis-Amjad’s battle with kidney failure began as a teenager when he was diagnosed with vesicoureteral reflux, a condition causing the backward flow of urine into the kidneys. After immediate dialysis, he was fortunate to receive a life-saving transplant just three months later from a donor who had died in a motorbike crash.

The donated kidney granted him 16 years of relative freedom, allowing him to complete his education, start work as a sales assistant, marry his wife Fouzia in 1998, and welcome their son, Haris, in 1999.

Unfortunately, the immunosuppressant medication necessary to prevent organ rejection eventually caused the donated kidney to fail. Since 2003, Amjad has been back on dialysis—a regimen that has now spanned more than 15,000 hours of his life.

His current situation is compounded by a medical reality: due to antibodies built up from his first transplant, his immune system is "highly sensitised," meaning he is compatible with only about 3% of the population. He has received only one call for a potential match since 2006, which proved unsuitable.

The Crisis in Organ Donation-Amjad’s wait comes as the NHS transplant waiting list has surged to a record high of over 8,000 people. Four out of five of those on the list need a kidney.

His background also highlights the urgent need for donors from diverse ethnic backgrounds. NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) warns that there is a severe shortage of ethnically matched organs from donors of Black or Asian heritage. Because kidney transplants must be matched on both blood group and tissue type (which is strongly linked to ethnicity), patients like Amjad are far more likely to find a suitable match if more people from similar ethnic backgrounds register to donate.

Anthony Clarkson, Director at NHSBT, stressed, "Amjad’s story shows the significant impact of having to wait so long for a suitable match... We urgently need more people to consider organ donation and, in particular, we need more donors with Black and Asian heritage."

Despite the introduction of the 'opt-out' system in England (Max and Keira's Law) in 2020, which presumes consent for organ donation, grieving families can still veto the procedure—a factor contributing to the ongoing shortage.

For Amjad, the future is uncertain, but his focus is on the simple joys a transplant would restore. "When I get my transplant, I most want to go for a swim. And to go away with my family for a real break where I don't have to think about hospital, dialysis, or what I am eating and drinking."