Transplant Week at Addenbrooke’s celebrates “an amazing gift to make”

This is National Transplant Week – and Addenbrooke’s specialists are urging people across the region to join the NHS Organ Donor Register and talk to their families about donation.

 

“Transplants are one of the miracles of modern medicine,” says Dr Samir Latifi, clinical lead for organ donation at Addenbrooke’s. “They are the best possible treatment for most patients with end-stage organ failure, but there is still a desperate shortage of donor organs.

 

“Last year, Addenbrooke's carried out 253 transplants – but we want to be able to perform many more operations. Nationally, about 1,000 patients die every year on a transplant waiting list before an organ becomes available.

“We'd like to get more people to discuss their wishes with their family and to make those wishes clear by signing up to the register. Nearly a third of the population has already expressed their wish to donate their organs when they die, but we need to increase that number so we can save more lives.”

 

The key message from everyone involved with transplantation is the need to make sure that other people know what you want before it is too late to make your wishes known.

Petra Shakeshaft, from Sawston, found herself in the position of having to make a decision about donation after her son James was fatally injured in a car crash in 2006. He donated his kidneys and heart valves after his death.

 

“As soon as organ donation was mentioned, it was like a light going on,” said Petra. “We were so out of control of everything, everything had been getting darker and darker, and this seemed to be one positive thing that could come out of the whole tragedy.

 

“I never thought anything like this would happen to us – these sort of things happen to other people. It’s not easy, but please think about what you would want to happen, and talk about it with your friends and family. Let people know what your wishes would be. Organ donation is such an amazing gift to be able to make, and it was the one positive thing that we can hold on to forever.”

 

More information about registering as a donor is available by calling 0300 123 23 23

> UK Transplant

 

 

Also on this site:

> The decision to donate: "like a light going on" – listen to audio

 

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