The opening of the Ron & Joy Paul Kidney Center will be celebrated at an event next Thursday at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
The kidney center will be established at George Washington University thanks to a $2.5 million gift from the Ron and Joy Paul Family Foundation. The foundation was created by Ron Paul, chair and co-founder of EagleBank, and his wife, Joy Paul, a social worker in private practice. Mr. Paul, a two-time kidney donation recipient, is also founder of Ronald Paul Companies, a real estate development firm.
The announcement event will be at 10 a.m. Nov. 5 on the 7th floor of SMHS. It will include a reunion of kidney donors and recipients from GW Hospital’s first-ever paired kidney exchange.
The new kidney center will address the growing burden of end-stage renal disease among D.C. citizens. Several initiatives aimed at raising awareness about kidney disease, which is prevalent in D.C., and encouraging live kidney donation are among the center’s goals.
The need for live kidney donation in the United States is urgent. About a dozen people die each day while waiting for a life-saving kidney transplant. In Washington, D.C., kidney transplants have decreased, but the incidence of end-stage renal disease has increased.
Earlier this year, GW performed its first-ever paired kidney exchange, led by Joseph Keith Melancon, director of the Transplant Institute at GW Hospital. The exchange allowed patients in desperate need of kidney transplants and members of their family who were not a match for kidney transplants to receive and donate a kidney through a three-way swap.