Organ transplants in crisis (From Western Telegraph)

Organ transplants in crisis

1A critical shortage of organ donors is threatening the lives of Pembrokeshire patients awaiting transplants.

Across Wales, 349 people are waiting for transplant surgery, but just 53 people were called for surgery last year.

Now Pembrokeshire cystic fibrosis sufferer Allison John, who only had days to live before her second transplant operation, is urging more people to become donors.

The medical student owes her life to the people who donated her their liver, heart and lungs.

Sadly, many of her fellow cystic fibrosis sufferers have not been so lucky. She has watched helplessly as friends have died because there are no suitable donors.

The shortage crisis has been triggered by the organ retention scandals at Bristol and Liverpool.

Allison and her parents, David and Helen John, of 14 Heol Caradog, Fishguard, want everyone to carry a donor card.

Twenty-four-year-old Allison, who became the first transplant patient to be accepted by the British Medical Association to study medicine, supports the idea of a donor card being incorporated within a driving licence.

I have lost quite a few friends who have been on the list for transplants but who didnt make it because there are just never enough donors, she said.

Thanks to my second transplant I can lead a normal life. Before my operation I was unable to go anywhere without a wheelchair and oxygen. I couldnt do anything without the help of my parents.

Allison, now studying medicine in Cardiff, was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when she was two weeks old.

Her father, David, a volunteer ambulance driver in Pembrokeshire, said her transplants had given her the chance to live life to the full.

After watching his daughter suffer over the years, he knows more than anyone how essential it is for people to carry donor cards.

Once we are dead what good are our organs to us? he said. We are all here to help each other. We can all do something that will give others the chance of life after we have gone.

He is proud of his daughter and says every extra year of life she is a blessing.

We never stop worrying about her, he admitted.

But we are over the moon for her, she is doing what she has always wanted to do. We cant ask for more than that.

Donor appeal: Allison John is living life to the full after a triple organ transplant. PICTURE: Martin Cavaney Photography.