540 patients still waiting for lifesaving operations
The importance of joining the NHS Organ Donor Register has been highlighted as part of a new campaign to increase registrations in Scotland.
People of all ages, shapes, sizes and ethnicities have stripped off and bared almost all in a TV ad to highlight that anyone can be a donor.
The “We Need Everybody” call to join the register has been issued as latest figures reveal that, every day in the UK, someone dies waiting on an organ transplant.
The face of the campaign is Gordon Hutchison, 26, from East Kilbride, who had a transplant at 13 after being born with a congenital heart defect.
Gordon, who stripped off for the ad to reveal his transplant scar, delivers the message that organ donation saves lives. Latest figures highlight there are 540 people in Scotland waiting on a lifesaving transplant. Hopeful patients can spend years on the waiting list, enduring debilitating breathlessness, lethargy and long periods of dialysis and hospitalisation.
Increasing registrations is vital as less than one per cent of deaths in Scotland happen in circumstances where the person is able to donate their organs.
Forty-three per cent of the population in Scotland are on the organ donor register – but the more people who join, the more lives that can be saved.
Gordon said: “I think the campaign is brilliant. If you support organ donation and haven’t yet joined the register, please do it now.
“It’ll be a lot easier than taking your kit off.”
Minister for public health Aileen Campbell said: “This campaign is about driving home that everyone has it in them to save a life – like Gordon’s.”