Niece Donates kidney To Veteran Uncle Through Veteran-Focused Living Donation Program
Nov 11, 2025 — by Transplant News
USA: Nicole Molina Nino donated a kidney to her uncle, an Air Force veteran named Fernando, after testing as a direct match, in a living-donor transplant that reunited family and military medicine teams. The uncle had been on dialysis for a year while waiting for a donor. Nino underwent the donor nephrectomy at NYU Langone and, three weeks afterward, the organ recipient and transplant team were ready at the Georgetown VA hospital for the transplantation and an in-person reunion following their surgeries.
The operation was facilitated by a New Jersey–based donor outreach program focused on veterans and their families, which was created five years ago to connect potential living donors with servicemembers in need. The program has arranged 73 donor–recipient matches to date and emphasizes community ties as a catalyst for donation, believing that shared connections—such as military service—encourage living donors to come forward.
Beyond surgical logistics, the outreach effort provides practical support throughout the transplant process. Staff help veterans navigate complex paperwork, coordinate care between civilian and VA hospitals, and arrange for expenses tied to travel and recovery, including lost wages, so financial barriers do not block a lifesaving match. Organ transport and coordination between donor and recipient teams were highlighted in the case of the niece and her uncle.
The program’s caseload also includes other veterans: an Army veteran identified as Khan reached end-stage renal failure with roughly 6 percent kidney function before receiving a transplant in summer 2022, and retired Marine Brendan Piper, 40, lives with polycystic kidney disease and is in stage 5 renal failure with one kidney remaining. Piper, a married father of three, spends many days on dialysis and created an online profile through veteran networks, hoping to be matched with a living donor after learning about the outreach program via veteran support groups.
