Donor cards ‘give life after death’

JACK HARMES is a happy child despite being fed through a tube and enduring 10 hours at night hooked up to a dialysis machine.

And, true to form, the three-year-old was all smiles when he enjoyed the fun, but not the food, at a very special picnic in a park in Dublin yesterday.

The picnic was organised by the Irish Kidney Association to mark the 11th European Day for Organ Donation and Transplantation.

Jack, an only child, from Castleknock, Dublin, has suffered kidney failure since birth. He is also deaf.

His parents, Christine and David, are hoping he will be put on a waiting list for a kidney transplant next year.

Jack will join more than 600 people waiting for an organ transplant in Ireland. About 500 need a kidney transplant and the remainder are awaiting a heart, lung or liver transplant.

Because it is believed Jack’s kidney disease has a genetic basis, his parents are not suitable as live donors.

“He has a really good personality. We are lucky in that regard because it has made life a little easier,” said Christine.

It is hoped Jack will have hearing in one ear after he receives a cochlear implant next month. His name will be put on the transplant waiting list when he fully recovers from the surgery.

Jack requires 10-hour nightly home dialysis treatment six nights a week. Because he also has problems swallowing, a nasogastric tube was inserted in his digestive tract last March.

Christine said she wanted more people to know that they can give life after death by becoming an organ donor.

“An aunt of mine passed away in America recently. Her family donated her organs and six people benefited from that,” she said.

There were 10,500 requests for organ donor cards after Liveline’s Joe Duffy highlighted the plight of people needing a life-saving transplant last month.

The record demand for donor cards followed an emotional appeal by writer Frank Deasy, who highlighted his desperate need for a liver transplant.

A few days later, however, the father-of-three died on an operation table in a Scottish hospital as he received the long awaited organ transplant expected to save his life.

So far this year in Ireland 52 liver transplant operations have taken place. There were nine heart transplants and 124 kidney transplants, of which 15 were from living donors.

There have been four lung transplants to date at the Mater Hospital in Dublin. One was a double lung transplant received by a cystic fibrosis patient.