Call for more donors as nurse loses fight for life (From The Argus)

Call for more donors as nurse loses fight for life

7:17am Tuesday 4th September 2007 in

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Laura Hamilton should have been celebrating her 21st birthday today.

Family and friends were looking forward to spending her big day with the popular nurse.

But instead her loved ones are preparing for her funeral after the 20-year-old lost her battle for survival against liver disease.

Today her parents launched a heartfelt plea for people to register as organ donors and prevent further suffering for victims and their families.

Laura was born with liver disease and made a remarkable recovery after receiving two life-saving operations as a toddler.

But in July this year the transplant she received aged 18 months began to fail and Laura died at King's College Hospital in London on August 27, after six weeks in intensive care and only days before what would have been her 21st birthday.

Her parents, John and Anita Hamilton, of Broadrig Avenue, Hove, appealed for greater awareness of the need for donors.

Mr Hamilton called for urgent changes to the way the donor system is run by automatically including every citizen into a donor scheme unless they deliberately opt out rather than waiting for people to sign up, as is the system in the UK now.

He said: "This scheme doesn't exist in the UK but we would like to raise awareness of it. We liked it because the transplant coordinators said they will still go to the bereaved family and ask their permission before any organs are used."

Mrs Hamilton said: "It's not just one person's life that can be saved. It's several people because you can donate kidneys, heart, liver and lungs.

"Even if the scheme is not running at the moment we urge people to sign up as organ donors. People don't think about it yet it's so easy.

"It only takes two minutes to do it on line and it will save lives. If you can prevent anyone suffering as we and Laura did it would be wonderful.

"We don't want our daughter's death to be in vain for others to suffer."

Finding a suitable organ donor can be critically difficult for patients with organ failure.

In Laura's case doctors had to assess whether she was fit enough for an operation before finding a donor organ that was a tissue match and was the right blood group, size and weight for it to be suitable.

Donors are also grouped by regions. Laura came under Kings College which stretches from London through Sussex and Hampshire to Dorset in the west and her donor had to come from that area.

The average waiting time for a donor was 15 months but even then they are not always guaranteed success because of the complexities of the treatment.

Tragically, for Jake Orpin, 20, from Worthing, who was diagnosed with liver disease in 2004, his body rejected his liver transplant in 2005. He died waiting on the transplant list in November last year.

This weekend friends remembered him in a concert to urge people to join the organ donor register and raise funds for Children's Liver Disease Foundation.

Mrs Hamilton said: "There are also problems with infections. When Laura was waiting for a transplant she was given medication.

"But this lowered her immune system making her prone to infection and it weakened her liver even further, making her situation more critical.

"She only had three days when she was well enough to have the transplant. But she couldn't have it because there wasn't a donor."

Despite receiving a transplant so young, Laura lived a full and healthy life. She worked stoically to give back to the charities that helped her by singing at the Children's Royal Variety Club aged 12 and by singing in a girl band, Unity, for Gold Heart Day to help children at Kings College Hospital where doctors saved her life as a toddler.

Laura studied at Blatchington Mill School in Hove and Brighton and Hove Sixth Form College, where she took A-Levels in Sociology, English and Psychology and an NVQ in nursery nursing.

She had been working as a student nursery nurse at Growing Up Green in Brighton until a couple of weeks before going into hospital.

The nursery planned an "L" party, where everyone dresses up as things beginning with the letter "L", for Laura's birthday today. They were going to send tape-recorded messages of support to her in hospital.

Laura had planned to leave work last week to study teaching at Roehampton University so she could teach children with special needs.

Mrs Hamilton described her daughter as a brave girl, who never felt sorry for herself and who lived life to the full, despite her underlying health problems.

Mr Hamilton said music was Laura's big hobby as she listened to an eclectic range of music from the Isley brothers to Mariah Carey as well as singing and playing piano.

She had planned a big, Hollywood-themed 21st birthday party on August 26 at Koba to which she asked her guests to wear purple.

Mrs Hamilton said: "She will be missed by many especially her brother, Dave, her boyfriend, Chris Fairhall, and her nan, Joan Nicholson.

The Hamiltons will hold the funeral service on September 7 at 3.30pm at St Helen's Church, Hangleton, followed by a cremation at Woodvale Crematorium in Lewes Road, Brighton, at 4.30pm.

They have asked anyone wishing to come to wear an item of purple in Laura's honour.

To find out more about becoming an organ donor visit www.uktransplant.org.uk or call 0845 6060400.