Voice star is well op for it

A CONTESTANT who wowed on The Voice last night has spoken of the health struggle that left her with four kidneys – and only one working.

Liza Baker was placed on a transplant list with 3,000 others and started dialysis after being told both her kidneys were failing.

The 44-year-old – who sang Alone by Heart and i s now on Jennifer Hudson’s team – said she had “lost the will to live” just before her first transplant, aged 20.

When she was 27, that kidney failed – and it was three years before the right match came up for a second transplant.

The failed kidneys were not removed as such ops can be deemed too invasive. Liza, who said she now feels “blessed”, joked: “Friends said to me after my second transplant, you’ve got a new Liza life, and they’re right. I’ve now got four kidneys but only one functioning.” The singer – a tribute act to stars like Shirley Bassey and Whitney Houston – now wants to thank the families of her donors.

She said: “I’d like to write a letter, through the hospitals, to say how grateful I am their relatives agreed to donate.”

Liza, of South Wales, lost her mother to bowel cancer a year-and-a-half ago, aged 79. She said: “Her dying wish was I re-enter the competition, after I applied years before and didn’t get through. That gave me a determination I never had before.”