Today three people across the UK will die waiting for a donor organ

Published on Monday 27 September 2010 17:30

JUST a few weeks ago Rachael Boon was fighting for her life in hospital as she battled to survive with her liver failing fast.

Now the 18-year-old is looking forward to the future again thanks to her second transplant.

Yesterday she helped launch a new campaign to get more Scots to sign up to the organ-donor register to try to increase the number of transplants, with three people across the UK dying every day while waiting for the life-saving surgery.

The Scottish Government is spending 500,000 on new TV, radio and online advertising which highlights the impact it can have on everyone who knows the person needing a transplant.

Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said they wanted to try measures such as this, as well as improving how donation is handled in hospitals, before looking again at the issue of presumed consent - where everyone is considered a donor unless they opt out of the register.

Ms Boon, who was born with Alagille Syndrome affecting her liver bile ducts, had her first transplant in 2008 after her younger brother Scott, 11, who has the same condition, had the operation. Their mother, Bev, said Scott did so well Rachael decided her life could also be improved by having a transplant.

But earlier this year, her body started to reject the donated liver and she was put on an emergency waiting list for patients given just weeks to live.

"This time around I was very, very ill and I was in hospital for two weeks," Ms Boon said. "Then I was on the transplant list for three weeks as an emergency."

Eventually, a match was found and she had a new liver transplant on 5 September.

Mrs Boon said: "She is doing brilliantly well. She was released from hospital on 16 September and although she has lost lots of weight and is still frail, she is a changed person."

During a previous publicity campaign, which ran from last December to August, the Scottish Government said more than 50,000 extra people joined the donor register. John Forsythe, Scotland's lead clinician for organ donation and transplantation, said he believed transplant operations had been boosted by these campaigns.

Figures show the number of operations carried out have risen 22 per cent from 195 in 2007/08 to 237 in 2009/10.Ms Sturgeon said the rise in transplants was encouraging, but more still needed to be done.

She said while she was sympathetic to presumed consent, they wanted to try other measures first such as greater use of transplant co-ordinators in hospitals.

"I am not ruling out presumed consent at some stage, but I'd rather we focused on this (other ways to increase donation].

"The other risk of going for a legislative change like that too quickly is you focus all the debate on that and forget about the other things you need to be doing," she said.

Dr Brian Keighley, chairman of the British Medical Association in Scotland, said presumed consent was still needed as studies showed over 90 per cent of people supported donation but only a third had signed the donor register.

Also at yesterday's launch was Susan Filsell, a GP from Glenrothes who is waiting for a liver transplant after suffering the disease primary sclerosing cholangitis. The 32-year-old who has to postpone her wedding next month after becoming ill, said the wait was very difficult.

"I am unable to work just now so spent a lot of time hoping 'the call' will come soon," she said.