Transplant shambles must not recur

WHEN Christiaan Barnard placed another person’s heart in Louis Washkansky’s torso in 1967 he had reached one of the great milestones of medicine.

By his skill and imagination, he had shown that chronic heart disease might not have immediate consequences.

A similar milestone had been passed almost two decades earlier, when the first kidney transplant was performed at the Little Company of Mary Hospital in Illinois, in 1950.

Each of these advances, and many, many, more since then, are life-restoring procedures that give those who need them a chance, first of all, to stay alive and, later, an opportunity to lead fairly normal lives.

For the recipient, there is nothing more important, so too for their families. This is especially true if the person who needs a new organ is a young child. We are all familiar with parents — and, through them, communities — who leave no stone unturned to get the best possible medical attention for children in such a life-threatening position.

Imagine then, the frustration, the heartbreak, that must follow when a person is offered a longed-for transplant but the opportunity is lost because transport can not be organised. Yet that is what happened to 14-year-old Leitrim girl Meadhbh McGivern last month. She needs a liver transplant.

A Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) report into the incident found that no individual was in charge of arrangements and that the system was not reliable. This will send a shiver down the spine of anyone waiting for a transplant, and it will cause those conscientious enough to carry a donor card to raise an eyebrow.

Surely it is fair to expect there is a file outlining procedures and responsibilities in these regular circumstances in every HSE office and in the duty officer’s desk at the Department of Health? Maybe even on the HSE and department websites. This is not expecting too much, especially as so many Irish people travel to Britain for these procedures.

Some good may come from Meadhbh’s lost opportunity, though.

Welcoming the very prompt report, Minister for Health James Reilly said a case like hers must not recur. He said he looked forward to the establishment of a National Aeromedical Co-ordination Centre and was “confident that it will produce an effective and pragmatic implementation of the report’s recommendations”. The HSE and Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin, said they endorse the recommendations and will work to implement the changes.

If, in a fairly short time, that means no-one is left to regret a lost opportunity like Meadhbh and her family then some good will have come from this shambles. It is a pity, though, that a failure as predictable as this had to come to light before our health services accepted responsibility for what seems an everyday but vital service.

Let us hope, too, that Meadhbh does not have to wait too long before she is offered another transplant, and that the procedures needed for her to quickly avail of that opportunity are in place.