Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli was admitted to the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu on Monday evening for his second kidney transplant procedure, twelve years after his first.

Oli, who suffered a renal dysfunction in September, could not immediately undergo surgery because of other health complications. He was put on a regular dialysis regimen.

"We are preparing to admit Prime Minister Oli," Dr Prem Krishna Khadka, director at the hospital, told the Post on Monday. "Further procedural works will be carried out after his admission." Doctors are preparing to perform a kidney transplant on Oli on Wednesday.

A team of doctors, led by Dr Prem Raj Gyawali, a consultant urologist and kidney transplant surgeon at the hospital, will perform the surgery, according to a hospital source.

Two other doctors, including Dr Ananta Kumar, a senior transplant surgeon at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in New Delhi who performed a transplant on Oli in 2007, have also been called for backup. The second doctor, also from India, is an expert in internal medicine. 

"We have heard that experts from India have been called, but I have not met them yet," said chief of the critical care department of the hospital Dr Subash Acharya, whose team will observe Oli after the surgery. 

"A meeting was held today, but we have been instructed not to speak about anything," said Acharya. "I have to look after the prime minister, as I lead the critical care department."

Meanwhile, a hospital source identified Oli’s donor as his niece Samikshya Sangraula Gyawali, 32, of Charaali, Jhapa. Gyawali was also admitted to the hospital on Monday afternoon.

Only family members and close relatives can donate organs under the country’s human organ transplantation law. The hospital has postponed the scheduled transplantation surgeries of two patients, Suman Shrestha and Nirmala Shakya, to accommodate the prime minister’s surgery.

Shrestha and Shakya were admitted to the hospital on Sunday. Their surgeries have been rescheduled for March 11.

Oli underwent his first renal transplantation surgery in 2007 at the Apollo Hospital, New Delhi, after both his kidneys failed. He has been operating on a single kidney since then. After the transplant is successful, Oli will no longer have to undergo regular dialysis, doctors said.

Addressing the nation on Monday evening through a video message, Oli compared himself to an athlete who cannot give up in the middle of a match. "No one is immortal in this world...After a few days of hospital stay, I will resume my job with additional energy and confidence," he said.