Bereaved dad from Bradford urging people to sign up to stem cell register
There's a call for people across West Yorkshire and the rest of the UK to help bring life-saving stem cell donors closer to home
Catherine Alport and Andrew Foster's baby son Rycroft suffered with Shwachman Diamond Syndrome (SDS), a rare genetic condition that affects multiple systems within the body and, in a quarter of cases, results in bone marrow failure.
In March 2023 he was admitted to Great Ormond Street Hospital for a bone marrow transplant – and although the transplant was initially successful, he passed away a few months later after contracting a subsequent infection.
Andrew, from Bradford now wants to see more people from the UK sign up to the stem cell register.
His son's match was from Germany, and Andrew told us: "One of our nurses, said almost as a little-a-side, Is the donor German? And we was like, oh yeah, they are, and they went, oh they're always German".
He wants to change this, he would like to see donors closer to home, in the hope it'll help save lives and speed up the process of donors.
Anthony Nolan is a UK charity with almost 50 years of experience and expertise in uniting science and people to push the boundaries of what can be achieved for blood cancer and blood disorder patients.
Having founded the world’s first stem cell donor register in 1974, the charity uses its register to match potential stem cell donors to blood cancer and blood disorder patients in need of stem cell transplants.
Alice Hirst is the senior recruitment manager at Anthony Nolan and told us: "We recruit donors that are aged between 16-30 years old, so we have a real focus on that, and we do that because we know they're going to give those patients the best possible chance of a successful recovery.
"For someone that actually wants to register, it will either be a case of completing an online form and having a swab pack sent to their house, or doing it at an event.
"It will be a case of swabbing the inside of their mouth and that gets popped in a wallet and it gets back to our labs. And then from then, all of their data around their tissue type is saved on this incredible register of people, and people only ever go on to donate if they're a match for somebody."