Dorset Echo campaign: Give a life for Christmas - become an organ donor

This December, the Dorset Echo is teaming up with NHS Blood and Transplant urge as many people as possible to sign up to the donor register.

Sadly, not all of those waiting will get the transplant they need.

Twenty-eight people in Dorset have died while on the transplant waiting list during the past five years, and their families will be facing Christmas without them.

Seven in Weymouth and Portland and 14 in West Dorset are currently waiting for a transplant.

Dorset Echo editor Toby Granville said: “There is no greater gift than the gift of life – so we are calling on all our readers to make the ultimate difference this Christmas and sign up to be a donor.”

Click here to sign the organ donor register and help others

“CONSTANTLY at threat of dying.”

That’s how one Dorset nurse described life for people who are waiting for an organ transplant.

Today, the Dorset Echo is launching its Give a Life for Christmas campaign in partnership with NHS Blood and Transfer.

Readers are being urged to sign up to the organ donor register to help patients and their families.

This year, 39 people in Dorset have received a transplant thanks to families agreeing to donate a loved one’s organs.

Lucy Roberts, is an NHS Blood and Transplant Specialist Nurse in Organ Donation who covers Dorset County Hospital.

She approaches families about organ donation and supports them throughout the process.

Lucy will be working on Christmas Day.

She described her role supporting bereaved families as a “privilege”.

She said: “I think the general public do not understand how awful it is for patients on the waiting list – constantly at threat of dying and not being able to live a fulfilling life.”

She added: “It is absolutely lovely to be able to write to families and let them know they have been able to save and improve people’s lives, and when they tell us how much it helps them, it is fantastic.”

Christmas can be a difficult time for people on the transplant waiting list. Their condition may mean they are too sick to enjoy it and many will worry it could be their last Christmas.

Sally Johnson, director of Organ Donation and Transplantation, said: “Every year thousands of patients on the waiting list in Dorset and around the country have a Christmas clouded with anxiety and uncertainty.

“Some severely ill people might spend the whole of Christmas in hospital, just hoping they get a life-saving transplant.

“While for others, their condition may mean they can’t enjoy Christmas like the rest of us.

“For example, people waiting for a kidney transplant may not be able to enjoy a traditional Christmas dinner because eating the wrong food may make them more unwell. Quite simply, there is a shortage of donated organs but if more families agreed to donate a loved one’s organs, more people would get the transplants they need.

“So when you are spending time with your loved ones this Christmas, please take a few minutes to sign the Organ Donor Register, and tell your family you’d be proud to become a donor.

“By telling those closest to you that you want to donate you will remove the burden of them having to guess what you would have wanted at a difficult time.”

Paul recieved the ultimate gift

A DORSET man who received the ultimate gift from his mother is backing the Dorset Echo’s campaign to encourage more people to sign up to the Organ Donor Register.

Paul Bithell, of Stratton, was on dialysis for more than 20 years after being born with damaged kidneys.

It was only after receiving treatment from new technology called plasma exchange to reduce the chances of his body rejecting a new kidney that he was given the go ahead from doctors to finally have a transplant.

Mum Susan was only too happy to donate her own.

Paul, now vice chairman of the Dorset Kidney Fund, said the operation changed his life.

He said: “Dialysis is swings and roundabouts. Personally I found it quite easy, but that was because I had been on it from such a young age.

“By the time I was six my kidneys were completely non-functional and I was on dialysis three times a week, every month, every year.

“When you’re a patient there are major restrictions on what you can eat and drink.

“For me personally when I had the transplant, it took quite a while to adjust. I had never known anything other than dialysis.

Paul continues to offer advice and help for people on dialysis through his role with the Dorset Kidney Fund.

“A lot of patients in the Dorset area, with them being at the higher end of the age group, are not the top priority for transplants.

“One woman in her 70s was turned away from one hospital as they told her she was too old, but we urged her to get a second opinion and she was later put on a waiting list.

“Age doesn’t matter so much as fitness.”

While he is encouraging people to sign up to the register to help other people if the worst should happen to them, he also wants people to consider becoming ‘living donors’ like his mother.

Paul added: “I think there is probably a bit of a misconception about how this can affect the donor. Ever since donating my mother has had no problems whatsoever, she has not had to change her lifestyle.

“Everyone can live with one kidney, it just happens that most of us were born with two.

“It is a long process and the donor can back out at any point they wish. There’s plenty of time to discuss it and ask questions.”

For Paul, the gift has transformed his life.

Before the plasma exchange treatment he was advised to look for a match outside the UK as he was so unlikely to find a match in the country.

“A year on and the benefits are clear to see. I’m healthier and my life has been completely turned around.”

• To join the NHS Organ Donor Register, visit organdonation.nhs.uk, call 0300 123 23 23 or text SAVE to 62323. Once you’ve signed up tell those closest to you that you want to donate