| |
 |
Foreign heart donor saves baby Margaux
|
From The Times March 12
A NEW heart has been found at the eleventh hour from a donor in Europe for a baby who put the spotlight on Britain's organ transplant crisis.
Margaux Bride, aged 13 months, was recovering at the Royal Brompton Hospital, West London, last night after an international operation to transport the donor heart from an undisclosed European country and transplant it into her.
Margaux had been on the waiting list since the start of the year and the wait for a heart was chronicled in The Times in recent weeks through the words of her mother, Claude.
Last night Mrs Bride, 37, said: “She has started moving a little finger and her cheeks are pink. It's a miracle.” The hospital said that Margaux had become very ill and the transplant operation could not have been delayed for much longer.
Margaux's case emerged in the wake of the public outcry surrounding the Alder Hey organ retention scandal. Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub, the surgeon who carried out Margaux's operation, had previously given warning that the atmosphere of horror prompted by Alder Hey could deter organ donors.
Alan Milburn, the Health Secretary, responded by calling an "organ summit" to consider new ways of encouraging organ donation.
Caption: Margaux Bride, photographed when she was nearly seven weeks old, finally had her heart transplant operation after months of waiting.
|
|
|
|
