Perfect match: brother crosses continents to donate kidney

After undergoing dialysis for a year and a half, South African born Israeli David Skolni knew a kidney transplant would be the only way to restore his health and quality of life. So, his brother, Raymond Schkolne, travelled from Cape Town to Petah Tikvah to make the ultimate donation.

Two small boys, pictured in 1961, are holding hands. David is two, Raymond four. Fast-forward 63 years, and they’re in a similar pose, only this time they’re wearing matching hospital gowns. “My son put these two pictures together. It’s a powerful expression of the story,” Skolni said.

They may spell their surnames differently, with Skolni using his 1982 move to Israel as an opportunity to spell Schkolne phonetically, but the brothers are now more strongly connected than ever. “Raymond was always my caring, big brother. We always had a good relationship,” Skolni said.

He said his kidney issues started when he was 17 and living in South Africa. “I went into the navy as there was compulsory service back then, and through regular medical checks, they discovered that I had microscopic blood in my urine.” Ultimately diagnosed with glomerulonephritis, a general term referring to several kidney diseases, Skolni still played sport and essentially continued to function normally.

Yet, at about the age of 50, he began developing high blood pressure, causing his kidney function to deteriorate steadily. Skolni was regularly monitored until March 2023, when he went into kidney failure. He was forced to go onto lifesaving but debilitating and time-consuming dialysis treatments three times a week, but soon realised that he couldn’t be on dialysis forever.

So he began the lengthy process of becoming eligible to join the list of kidney transplant candidates. He also put a call out on Facebook asking if anyone would be willing to donate a kidney as only one healthy kidney is needed to live a normal life. Though family members are obvious donors, Skolni’s daughter also has microscopic blood in her urine, and his son was emotionally stretched caring for his mother, Skolni’s ex-wife, who has cancer.

“My brother, Raymond, was dealing with a medical issue so he couldn’t be a candidate at that stage,” Skolni said. Yet, a few months ago, Schkolne underwent a procedure and his health was restored. After getting the all-clear, he decided to put himself up as a possible donor.

“Raymond started the process of getting tests done in Cape Town through Groote Schuur Hospital, and he passed all of them.” He then needed to come to Israel to do the second round of tests at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikvah where Skolni was being treated, and he passed those too. Beilinson is known as Israel’s number one hospital for transplants, particularly for kidneys, Skolni said.

Schkolne, who in fact lived in Israel for five years after he got married, was originally told that he would have to return to South Africa after doing the tests. He would then need to come back for the operation if declared a viable candidate. “But Raymond was insistent with the hospital staff,” Skolni recalled. “He said, ‘This is a time of war. I want the whole process to be done in one go, with as short a gap as possible between the tests and the operation.’ He was a real nudnik about it, but it worked.”

The brothers underwent their operations on 20 October, and are now both recovering, which is a much quicker process for the donor than the recipient. Schkolne and his wife, Sheryl, are due to return to Cape Town in mid-November, after spending almost two months in Israel. “With all the rockets going off, it’s not an easy time at all here,” Skolni said. Yet considering the positive outcome, he thinks the couple will look back on their journey as a meaningful period in their lives.

At this stage, the transplant was successful, Skolni said. “It’s a long journey, but the most important part is over. Now I just have to be monitored, keep taking the medication, and hopefully slowly get stronger. When you get a kidney from someone, the body identifies it as a foreign body and fights it. So, I need to take medication every day for the rest of my life, which essentially suppresses the immune system so that the body doesn’t reject the kidney. I have to be very careful, there are certain restrictions, and a long recovery, but it’s a price worth paying to enable me to live a relatively normal life without the need for dialysis.”

Skolni said that aside from coming to Israel in a time of war which was a considerable ask, the fact that his brother volunteered to donate his kidney is massive. “He’s a compassionate person,” he said. “It didn’t surprise me that he stepped up. If you had asked him, he would say it was a natural decision. He underplays his role.”

Though Skolni believes his brother did the right thing as families should ideally help each other in such circumstances, he’s aware that this isn’t always the case. “He’s a hero for doing it, because not everybody would. It has had a major impact on his life. But I didn’t ever say to him, ‘No, Raymond, I don’t want you to donate. I don’t think you should.’ From the minute he said he would be happy to do it, I said, ‘Thank you very much, I’ll take it.’ Hopefully in a month or two, he would have fully recovered and he can lead a full, healthy life,” Skolni said.

Fighting back tears, Skolni said his brother was named for their aunt, Ray, who tragically died in a car accident as a teenager. “Sixty-seven years after Raymond was born, he has so lived up to his name by giving a new life, a shining and bright ray of light and hope to his younger brother.”