Wait for organ transplants leaves four dead

Wait for organ transplants leaves four dead

By Maria Thompson
Peterborough Today UK
May 18, 2007

THEY were living in hope of a miracle, but four Peterborough people died in the last year because no organ donor was found in time to save them.
Three lost their lives waiting to receive a healthy kidney, and another died when no suitable liver was found in time for a transplant.

It is grim news for 63 patients in the Peterborough area who are on the emergency list, and waiting for the call that will tell them a suitable donor has been found.

For people like 21-year-old Fagar Baru, of Eyrescroft, Bretton, Peterborough, the statistics - which show more people died while on the waiting list last year than in any of the past four years - just add to the agony.

Fagar's life centres around hoping he will get a lifesaving call. He was born with a kidney that was too small to function and had his first transplant when he

was two years old. But when he turned 18, the organ suddenly failed.
Now he lives in hope, and has done for four years. But his condition has left his bones so weak that he broke a leg falling over while simply kicking a ball about.

Today, he said: "It's hard when you are young and everyone is going out and having fun. It really holds you back.

"I have to plan everything around dialysis and being close to the hospital."

If Fagar gets a miracle he will have a window of just four hours to get to the hospital to give surgeons a chance of success.

Like other patients whose only lifeline is a transplant, Fagar is aware that he is at risk because not enough people carry a donor card.

Fagar's relatives have been tested for a match, but he has a rare blood group, and they were ruled out.

Fagar's mother, Mina, said: "His father died of asthma at the same time Fagar became ill.

"When his kidney failed straight after his father died it was a difficult time for us all.

"He started getting water on his lungs and said 'mum I can't breathe'. I called an ambulance and they took him to hospital. They told me he was very close to not surviving.

"He stayed in the hospital in the isolation unit for a week and that's when they discovered the kidney had failed."

There are 74,472 people living in the Peterborough area who are on the UK Organ Donor Register, but today UK Transplant, the organisation that matches donors and potential recipients, urged more people to register, particularly those of black and
Asian origin.

Campaigns and marketing manager Tamsin May said: "There is a shortage of organ donors of all backgrounds, but the problem is particularly acute among the black and south Asian communities.

"Transplants are more successful when the donor and recipient are of the same ethnic background."

In the year 20003-4, two people died waiting for kidney and liver transplants, in 2004-5 two kidney patients died, and last year one kidney patient died.

Meanwhile, Fagar says: "If I got a new kidney tomorrow the first thing I would do is travel the world. My mum would love to go to India."
He knows, however, that for the forseeable future, he will not move far from the telephone.

Find out more about organ donation and join the NHS Organ Donor Register by calling 0845 6060400, or visiting www.uktransplant.org.uk.

http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/ViewArticle.aspx?sectionid=845&articleid=2889130

PHOTO Fagar Baru has been waiting four years for a new kidney.