‘New Heart Was Found for Me With Very Little Time Left.. And My Life Was Saved’
By MAGGIE BARRY
THE close friend of Gordon Brown who inspired him to revolutionise organ donation in the UK last night told how his life was saved by a heart transplant.
The Prime Minister’s former school pal Lord Murray Elder underwent a life-saving heart and lung transplant 19 years ago.
The operation was referred to by the PM last week when he unveiled plans to back a controversial donor card "opt-out" scheme to increase the number of available organs.
Lord Elder said: "Any one who has had a transplant has the greatest respect for the doctors, nurses and support staff who did the transplant operation and have looked after us ever since.
"But more than anything we are lost in admiration for the people who decided to make their organs available in the event of their sudden death, and the support their families give to that decision.
"That decision saves lives."
Labour party stalwart Lord Elder was close to death as calls went out across the country for a donor for heart and lungs. With only hours to spare, a donor was found hundreds of miles away and his op went ahead.
Mr Brown spoke emotionally of his pal’s brush with death on Monday when he unveiled his plans to tackle Britain’s organ donor crisis.
The plans would see viable organs automatically taken from dead bodies unless the person was carrying a card saying they didn’t want that to happen.
At the moment, organs can only be taken from people carrying donor cards – and there is a shortage of organs as a result.
Lord Elder, who was a close pal of leading Labour figures John Smith and Donald Dewar, said: "For me it had all started many years ago, while at school in Kirkcaldy, when I had rheumatic fever.
"As could happen, and in my case did, this left me with a weakened heart muscle, and in the fullness of time – 20 years or so later – that became a real problem.
"Initially drugs kept me going, but finally, when there was very little time left for me and a transplant was the only option, a heart became available. That meant that someone somewhere had made a prior commitment, supported by their family, to be part of the transplant programme should anything happen to them. And so, just over 19 years ago, I was taken to the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle and given a new heart and a new chance of life. It was touch and go. I had lost a huge amount of weight, but was able to have the operation. Inside four months I was back at work. And the advances that have been made since then mean an even quicker recovery is possible. But it is all dependent on getting the new organ.
"I strongly support Gordon’s move to open up the debate on opt- out. He knew me, of course, when I was ill in school. We had been through university together and remained close friends.
"He saw my rapid decline in 1988 – we were both staying in Edinburgh at the time – and when he visited me in Newcastle I know he was as amazed as everyone else at the speed of my recovery.
"I take no credit for his decision, save to say he has seen at first hand the benefits that can come from transplants, and knows of course the numbers that are waiting for the possible chance for themselves. I am sure he is right.
"What the transplant programme did for me, and does for so many others, is give us the chance to return to a full, active life.
"Of course we have to continue to take any number of pills for the rest of our days – but that is a very small price to pay for the gift we have been given by the donor and their family.
"What Gordon has said will, I hope, move a lot more people to think about this, and make sure that their next of kin know their views.
"I hope we do reach an opt-out position, which will have to be based on trust and an understanding of what is involved.
"And the whole medical service will have to be geared up to ensure that the right approach is taken in each and every case. So a discussion is vital, and a broad acceptance and understanding is vital too
"But in the meantime, let’s make sure that all those who say they would be prepared to be in the transplant programme do something about it, so that even if some unforeseen tragedy happens to them, individual tragedies to others can be reversed, and lives saved."
It was at Kirkcaldy High School that Lord Elder became close friends with Mr Brown.
He worked for the Bank of England until 1980, and from 1984 to 1992 he was a leading light in the Scottish Labour party.
He was also chief of staff to former Labour leader John Smith and remained intensely loyal to him until his untimely death in 1990.
Lord Elder was also an adviser to Donald Dewar, and was awarded a peerage in 1999.
A keen hillwalker, last year he became the first heart transplant patient to climb all the 284 Munros.
He conquered the last of them, the 3,196ft Beinn Sgritheall in the Highlands, with the surgeon who performed his transplant.
Following his achievement, Lord Elder said: "I was determined to finish the Munros to show that transplant surgery need not restrict a person’s ability to lead a normal life.
"I hope it gives encouragement to other transplant patients and shows what you can still achieve after transplant surgery."
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