Eleven athletes who have had life-saving transplants at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle are preparing to fly out to Portugal for the European Transplant Sport Championships.
The athletes, who between them have had surgery including heart, lungs, kidney, liver, pancreas and stem cell transplants, are representing Team Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Lisbon on Monday.
The Freeman Hospital’s Institute of Transplantation is the first centre in the UK to combine multiple transplants and services under one roof, and is a national leader in the field of solid organ transplantation, with some of the highest success rates in the UK.
According to NHS Blood and Transplant, the centre carried out over 200 transplants last financial year including adult heart, lungs, liver, kidney and pancreas – and children’s heart and lung – with patients referred from across the UK for treatment.
This includes 125 kidney transplants – 81 from people who donated after they died, and 44 from living donors.
The athletes include Becky Seaton from Cumbria who underwent a kidney and pancreas transplant at the Freeman, transplant games couple Craig Jones from Leeds, who had a double lung transplant at the Freeman and his wife Emma Hilton-Jones who had a heart transplant in London, and met at a previous transplant games event, and Kirston Clulow who had a heart transplant at the Newcastle centre.
Lynne Holt, GB and NI team manager, said: “Each participant is a living example of the success of organ transplantation and the celebration of life, which is central to the games.
“Anyone looking for some real-life superheroes should look no further than those who make up the team. Every one of these amazing athletes is a successful transplant recipient at their peak of physical fitness, enabling them to compete at the games.
“But perhaps more importantly, the games put a global spotlight on the need for organ donation.”
Georgia Wilding, 31, has worked for ten years in the Institute of Transplantation and chose to altruistically donate her kidney to an anonymous recipient when she was 30 years old, after being inspired by her cousin Jamie Wilding underwent two liver transplants as a child.
“He sadly died from heart failure at the age of 30, he was a big part of my inspiration to donate a kidney.”
Georgia has seen first-hand the life changing impact of organ donation on the transplant ward.
“I already knew about transplants, then I did my placement there as a nursing student and loved it, so I carried on and got a job on the adult high dependency transplant ward.”
Over 700 participants are set to travel from 25 countries across Europe to compete in 14 sporting events including everything from padel and volleyball to discus and pétanque.
Team GB and NI is the largest team taking part, with 70 competitors, accompanied by 50 supporters of family, friends, volunteer managers and physiotherapists.
The event aims to demonstrate the benefits of transplantation, encouraging transplant patients to regain fitness, whilst increasing public awareness of the need for more people to make their wishes clear on the NHS Organ Donation Register, as well as the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Register, and discuss their decision now with their families.
This system currently works on the understanding that everyone over the age of 18 agrees to become an organ donor when they die, unless they have made it known they do not wish to donate or are in one of the excluded groups.
For out more and join the NHS Organ Donor Register by calling 0300 123 2323 or visit www.organdonation.nhs.uk.
To join the bone marrow donor register go to http://www.anthonynolan.org/
