People are being urged to sign up as organ donors after the lives of more than 100 people were saved thanks to a “courageous decision”.
Last year the families of 57 patients who died at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridgeshire supported their loved ones’ wishes to donate their organs.
That saved the lives of 103 people who desperately needed a transplant.
In the last year, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) carried out 191 kidney transplants, 19 kidney and pancreas, 95 liver, four liver and kidney, one heart and kidney, and 13 bowel transplants – transforming the lives of 323 people.
The trust celebrated the first anniversary of its 100th multi-visceral transplant patient, Stephen Cooper, from Bishop’s Stortford, who during a single operation received a liver, small bowel, pancreas and kidney.
The figures were released as CUH prepares to mark national Organ Donor Awareness Week starting on September 7.
It will highlight that he law around organ donation has moved to an opt-out system.
Claire Murphy, specialist nurse for organ donation, said: “We fully understand how important it is for families to make a decision in a way that honours their faith, beliefs and values.
“Organ donation can offer comfort to the families of donors through the knowledge that something remarkable and truly incredible comes from their loss - the transformation of another’s life.”
All adults in England will be considered as willing to donate when they die, unless they have recorded a decision not to, are in one of the excluded groups or have told their family they don’t wish to.
Families will still be involved before organ donation goes ahead, so it is important donors share their decision with family or closest friends, and record it on the NHS Organ Donor Register.
Donors could save or transform up to nine people’s lives and help others by donating tissue, such as heart valves, skin, bone, tendons and corneas.
The 70m Addenbrooke’s chimney will be floodlit in pink all week and Cambridge’s Kings College will be illuminated on Thursday 10 September.
Addenbrooke’s nurses will walk there in memory of donors and to promote donation.
At 6.30pm on Wednesday, September 9, the CUH Facebook page will host a lecture with CUH consultant in paediatric intensive care, and clinical lead for organ donation, Dr Riaz Kayani.
Anyone who wants to learn more about organ donation or register their organ donation decision, should visit: www.organdonation.nhs.uk
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