East Yorkshire Transplant Patient Backs NHS Campaign

An East Yorkshire transplant patient is backing a new NHS campaign to get more people to sign up as organ donors and help save lives.

Tamara Hall from Beverley suffered acute liver failure back in 2007 and needed two transplants. She spent six weeks in a coma and six months in hospital but has since made a full recovery.

NHS Blood and Transplant has today launched its Christmas List campaign to raise awareness of the thousands of people across the country who are waiting for a transplant and to urge everyone to join the NHS Organ Donor register.

New figures show that in the East Riding alone, there are 26 people currently waiting for an organ, while 19 patients have died while on the transplant waiting list during the past five years.

Tamara told Viking FM that she feels lucky to be alive:

"I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for some amazing person signing the Organ Donor register, I do feel grateful every day. I just can't thank them enough and I do try and do the best I can in my life to make up for that, the fact that I've been given a second chance, I'm just eternally grateful.

"You can help someone else live a full life again, there are children who need donations and plenty of young people like me, I was just 32 years old when I had my transplants and I'll hopefully now go on to live a full normal life.

"I never thought it would happen to me or anybody I know. It was like a surreal nightmare even after it had happened, the concept I'd had a transplant it was all very weird and I just never imagined anything like that would happen to me, but it does. It was such a fine edge experience as I was only given a 10% chance of survival.

"I felt really ill one Monday morning and admitted myself to Hull Royal Infirmary and then I got rushed to St James' Hospital in Leeds and it was then I was told that I needed an emergency liver transplant which was such a massive shock. It was also a big shock for my family, they got a call in the middle of the night saying that they were going to have to operate on me as I wasn't going to last more than a couple of days. The next thing I knew I had woken up from a six-week coma having had two transplants and luckily they had saved my life.

"I'd been so well before that, I'd never had any illnesses really and I'd always been fit and healthy and I think that did help me survive and probably why they did try the second transplant when the first one failed. I was also surprised when I looked around the ward and saw how many normal people they were needing a transplant."

Tracey Heron is an NHSBT Specialist Nurse in Organ Donation who works at Hull Royal Infirmary. She approaches families about organ donation and supports them throughout the process.

She said:

"It is humbling to work with people following the loss of a loved one at any time of year, not just at Christmas, and it is very rewarding to fulfil the wishes of a donor and their family to save lives. "Organ donors save or improve the quality of life of seriously ill patients. For many patients a transplant is the only option left and their life depends on families agreeing to donate. * * "I urge people in East Riding to join the NHS Organ Donor Register and to tell those closest to them their decision. I know that many families find it easier to support donation when they know their loved one wanted to be an organ donor.”

To join the NHS Organ Donor Register, visit www.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.