I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: News Articles => Topic started by: okarol on September 29, 2008, 08:13:12 AM
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Full recovery for boy given lifesaving operation in Brum
Sep 29 2008 by Alison Dayani, Birmingham Mail
A SEVERELY ill Ghanaian teenager given the gift of life by Birmingham surgeons has recovered enough to go back to school in his African village.
Felix Yeboah was flown from Ghana to Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital for a life-saving transplant operation in March – with his father Michael as the kidney donor.
The 15-year-old would have died within months without the seven-hour operation, which was organised by charity Transplant Links, as there are no dialysis machines in his home country.
A team of 20 doctors gave up their free time to perform the transplant from father to son.
But it was such a success that the teenager’s family have now contacted Birmingham medics to say Felix is so well he has returned to school in Accra.
It also means his five brothers and sisters will no longer miss out on an education, as Felix’s parents 45-year-old pastor Michael and wife Comfort, 42, could not afford to pay for school fees with all their earnings used for Felix’s treatment.
Dr Jennie Jewitt-Harris, chief executive of Transplant Links, said: “We were delighted to receive a call this week from Felix and his dad wanting to let us know Felix is about to go back to school.
“Felix would have been dead by now if the team at QE Hospital and Transplant Links had not stepped in to help.
“News like this is fantastic and makes us proud to have achieved something.”
Footballer Nigel Reo-Coker even made a bedside visit to Aston Villa fan Felix as a 15th birthday treat when he was recovering in hospital.
Transplant Links Charity saves lives in developing countries by encouraging top transplant surgeons to share their expertise with doctors in the Third World.
QE surgeon Andrew Ready, who set up the charity, was on a mercy mission in Ghana when he was so moved by Felix’s plight that he decided to fly the teenager to Birmingham for the operation.
http://www.birminghammail.net/news/birmingham-news/2008/09/29/full-recovery-for-boy-given-lifesaving-operation-in-brum-97319-21922582/