Max mum: Donor law change can save 700

HUNDREDS of lives a year would be saved by a new “Max’s law” on organ donors, his family say.

As MPS backed the Mirror campaign for waiting list patients like Max Johnson, almost 12,000 people signed our petition and the NHS donor register. Experts also their support. Nineyear-old Max’s heart surgeon

Asif Hasan and top figures at the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Physicians and the British Heart Foundation backed our call for an “opt out” system.

This means people are taken to be donors unless they ask to be excluded from the national scheme.

The Mirror has told how Max, of Winsford, Cheshire, has waited six months for a donor organ after he was rushed to Freeman Hospital, Newcastle – a specialist transplant centre – with an engave larged heart.

Max’s mum Emma, 47, said yesterday: “The optout in Wales in its first year resulted in 39 more transplants than the year before.

“If you multiply by 18 to allow for England’s higher population, the new law will allow 700 transplants.”

In Wales, only 6% have opted out since the system was introduced for 2015.

Yesterday we revealed that Labour MP Geoffrey Robinson will deliver a parliamentary bill for an opt-out scheme.

The move is a victory for our Change the Law for Life campaign.

Mr Robinson said: “It’s a national scandal so many people die waiting for transplants when we could give them the gift of life.”

HOPE Max with mum Emma