NHS boss hails ‘gift’ of donated kidney after less than a year on transplant list
Parents mourn son as killer driver high on coke is jailed
A HOSPITAL boss who underwent a kidney transplant after less than a year on the waiting list spoke today of the “amazing gift”.
Matthew Hopkins, 50, chief executive of Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS trust, was selected for a “pre-emptive” operation months before he faced being placed on daily dialysis. A friend had volunteered to donate a kidney but another kidney, for which Mr Hopkins was a good match, became available after the death of a donor.
He had the procedure at St George’s hospital in Tooting this month, hours after receiving an early-morning phone call telling him an organ was available.
Kidney patients normally wait two and a half years for a transplant due to the shortage of donors. Last year 256 NHS patients died waiting for a kidney. Mr Hopkins said: “It’s an amazing gift. I just feel very, very lucky — and lucky from the point that it came so quickly. The normal waiting time is a minimum of two years.
“In other communities, such as the black community, where kidney disease is more prevalent, or for South-East Asians, there is an even longer waiting time. I’m going to be very sensible in making sure I look after this kidney.”
Under transplant rules, Mr Hopkins knows nothing of the donor and the donor’s family are not told which patient receives the organ.
He inherited polycystic kidney disease and was facing the prospect of daily peritoneal dialysis, in which fluids are drained from the abdomen. Mr Hopkins said: “I have known I have this since 1993. The team at St George’s have kept a close eye on me. Because I’m fit and healthy, they were keen to do a pre-emptive transplant before I became dependent on dialysis.”
He praised the “excellent” treatment he received and was discharged four days after the hour-long operation. He expects to be off work for eight weeks.
St George’s performs 130 kidney transplants a year. The process involves “re-plumbing” the third kidney into his body rather than removing one of his own kidneys. Sally Johnson, director of organ donation and transplantation for NHS Blood and Transplant, said: “Organ donation saves lives and we urge people to join the NHS Organ Donor Register.” THE family of a young motorcycle display team instructor killed in east London by a driver high on cocaine said his actions had “torn them apart”, after he was jailed for seven years.
Gerald Cotter, 49, was driving and overtaking “in a crazy way” when he killed 23-year-old Kieron Fevrier, Judge Stephen Kramer QC said at the Old Bailey. Cotter sped along Orient Way in Leyton at up to 53mph in a 30mph zone and forced another driver to brake sharply. Mr Fevrier slammed into the back of the car. The motorcyclist, an instructor for Newham-based display team the Imps, suffered fatal head injuries and died at the scene on November 30 last year. His parents John and Nicki said: “The careless stupid actions of one man have torn a family apart.”
Mr Fevrier’s family is raising money for his motorcycle display team. More information is at impsonline.com