About kidney health

Your kidneys clean your blood and are found on either side of your spine, just below and partly under your ribs. 

They work as filters to remove water and waste from your blood. You get rid of this waste when you pass urine (pee).

 

Kidney disease damages the kidneys so that the waste can’t be properly removed from the body. When this happens, the waste builds up in the body. If the damage becomes very bad, your kidneys don’t recover. This is called end-stage kidney disease. Over time, this will make a person very sick, and without treatment, the person will die. Kidney disease is sometimes called renal failure. You might know someone with kidney disease.

 

Live kidney donation is when you give one of your healthy kidneys to a person whose kidneys don’t work. People whose kidneys don’t work need dialysis (a treatment that cleans their blood) or a kidney transplant to stay alive. Live kidney donation can give them a better and usually longer life.