Change the system so my boy can have heart transplant
THE mother of a 15-yearold boy waiting for a heart transplant has backed the campaign to make organ donation ‘opt out’ and not ‘opt in’.
Catriona Yasar’s son Sahin is in the Intensive Care Unit of the Mater Hospital.
The Dublin mother described how ‘every minute of every hour of every day we wait for the phone call to say there is a suitable heart’.
Currently in Ireland, donor organs can only come from people who have given express consent before dying. However, some other countries operate a system of opt-out consent.
Ms Yasar spoke of her hope that Ireland would make opting in the default position for donors.
Last December, Health Minister Simon Harris said he was planning to bring forward legislation for an opt-out system this year. However, there is some opposition to Mr Harris’s plan, including from the Irish Kidney Association.
Ms Yasar spoke as her schoolboy son remained in hospital four months after he was admitted.
‘Technically, he is the sickest and youngest adult on the heart transplant list in Ireland,’ she explained.
Although Sahin was diagnosed with a heart condition as a young baby, he led a largely normal life until last November.
At that point, he had low blood pressure and Ms Yasar could hear a low grunting sound whenever Sahin drew breath.
She took him to hospital emergency departments on four occasions over three days, and on the Appeal: Mother Catriona Yasar fourth occasion, Sahin began vomiting blood. He had severe pneumonia and was admitted to intensive care at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin, on November 21.
Ms Yasar was horrified to learn that Sahin’s lungs were failing. For a period, doctors feared that he would have to go on life support but he pulled through.
The teenager is now in Dublin’s Mater Hospital where he had open-heart surgery, being fitted with a device to help his heart continue pumping blood while he waits for his transplant.
Ms Yasar said it was the second time that her persistence and intuition had paid off in relation to her son’s health.
‘I knew there was something wrong when he was just a few weeks old,’ she said.
‘Sahin was not feeding properly, he was sweating at the back of his head and was screaming like somebody stuck a pin in him even though he was asleep. He was slowly losing weight.’
On her fifth trip to an emergency department, a doctor decided to transfer five-week-old Sahin to Crumlin Children’s Hospital – less than an hour before he went into cardiac arrest.
‘He had a massive heart attack,’ she said. ‘They literally caught it and he went to ICU.’
Sahin, from Coolock in Dublin, fought back and was discharged at nine weeks. He was diagnosed with a serious heart condition called tachycardiomyopathy, irregular heartbeats and two murmurs. In the years that followed he has been on medication and goes for regular check-ups.
Until November he led largely a normal life, although as mother Ms Yasar notes, ‘he had to stop playing sport on medical advice because he was too close to having Sudden Adult Heart Syndrome. Despite his condition, nothing has restricted him – he spends time with his friends and was fit and active.’ Although he is facing up to his hospital stay, Ms Yasar said Sahin had not been able to go home to his parents and brothers Leo, 13, and Sayid, seven.
‘Twice the Make A Wish Foundation has asked him what he wants,’ she said. ‘He says, “I just want to go home.”’
Ms Yasar spoke of the ongoing stress for the family.
‘Every minute of every day we are waiting for the phone call,’ she said. ‘It would be an amazing phone call but I also know that for it to happen someone else will lose someone they love.’
Sahin’s father Abdurahman said: ‘You can save 16 people with your organs. You don’t just make their life easier, you save their life.’
Ms Yasar said: ‘It is not just a “person” you are saving, it is someone’s mother, father, brother, sister, their future partner and children. The list of people that an organ donor can have a positive impact on is endless.’
‘Youngest adult on transplant list’