My heartfelt thanks for life
I WAS delighted to read that Paul Hayman is still going strong 30 years after his heart transplant at Papworth Hospital (Mail), though he had been told that he could only expect to live for a decade. However, he is certainly not the country’s longest surviving such patient. I had a heart transplant 31 years ago, in 1986, under the skilful hands of the great Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub at Harefield. At my last half-yearly check-up, I checked the hospital’s list of transplant patients who have survived for ten years or more — there were 19 who’d had their transplants before me, with some who had their operation 33 years ago. Without donors, transplants would not be possible. Sadly, many opportunities are lost due to family and friends not agreeing to organs being removed from their loved ones at the time of death.
KEN HARRIS, Southwold, Suffolk.
PAPWORTH has had 11 heart transplant patients who have survived for more than 30 years — something that I, as the then hospital consultant cardio-thoracic surgeon, would never have anticipated at the time of their operations.
Sir TERENCE ENGLISH, Oxford.