MPs’ chance to give gift of life
THERE are now just two days left to try to change the law on organ donation.
Just two days to persuade our MPs to turn up in Parliament on Friday morning and vote to give a chance to those desperately waiting for a transplant operation.
And if there is anyone left in the country wondering whether this is really worth the effort, anyone doubting that it’s the right thing to do… just take one look at gorgeous Benjamin Rayner.
The six-month-old desperately needs a new heart if he is to survive. Without it he’s unlikely to take his first steps, or turn up for a first day at school, pass his driving test, get married. All those milestones will be denied him because of the terrible shortage of organ donors in this country.
At the moment, people have to opt-in to become organ donors and the reality is not enough of us get round to doing it.
A new system – where people have to opt-out – could save up to 500 lives every year.
Spain, which has
worked like this for
almost 30 years, is now the world leader in organ donation with only a handful of people dying while on the transplant register. Here, 4,712 people have died in the past decade, waiting for a transplant. The heart-breaking reality is that unless a new heart is found soon, Benjamin may become another digit in this terrible toll. His mum Ashley says, “Every morning I tell Benjamin this could be the day he gets his special gift. Every night, I tell him I’m sorry it didn’t happen today. Then I kiss his eyelids and say, ‘Please stay another day, I beg you’.”
Anyone reading that can feel the stomach-churning terror Ashley and her husband Davy must go through each morning and evening, waiting for the chance that will save their baby.
Benjamin was born after Ashley endured nine miscarriages. This is a woman who knows the value of life. And this is why there can be no greater rallying call to our MPs – to the representatives paid to keep us and our families safe and secure – than when Ashley says: “If MPs knew what it was like, if they had been through this themselves, or had met all the children on the waiting list and seen their families crying, they would all be there on Friday to change the law as quickly as possible.”
Let’s hope, for Benjamin and all the others waiting for transplants right now, that they are.