Mother’s organ donor appeal for daughter, 6
THE FAMILY of a six-year-old girl from Yorkshire who is battling a severe genetic kidney disease have made an impassioned plea to help find an organ donor.
Sarah Emmott’s parents, Ellie and Andy, have appealed for potential donors to come forward to establish if they are a tissue match to allow a kidney transplant for their daughter.
The schoolgirl, who lives in Tadcaster, has never been able to eat food normally, and has to be fed intravenously through a pump. She also suffers from chronic daily pain.
Her mother, 46, who is on a career break from West Yorkshire Police where she works as a police radio operator, added: “Searching for a live kidney for Sarah is not like setting up a fundraising page to reach a target – you can’t buy a kidney, so it’s much more personal with more commitment needed.
“It won’t be long now until she goes into kidney failure and needs an organ donation.”
Medical experts have deemed that Sarah’s best chances of survival lie with a kidney donation from a live patient.
Her parents have been tested and, although they are the same blood type, they were not tissue matches with their daughter. If a live donor is not found, Sarah will be placed on the deceased donor list, and is likely to spend months in hospital on dialysis.
Dr Eric Finlay, a consultant paediatric nephrologist at Leeds General Infirmary, has treated her since she was diagnosed at the age of just six weeks old.
He said: “Sarah has had an incredibly difficult life and struggle up to this point and it is testament to Sarah and her parents that she manages to be such a wonderful, bright sparky little girl.”
More information about being a live organ donor is available online at www.leedsth.nhs. uk/a-z-of-services/kidneytransplantation/