William

This is William. He is four years old. He loves Thomas the Tank Engine.

William needs a samll bowel transplant as soon as possible.

Because 'intestines' are not listed on the donor card or register and intestinal transplantation does not currently have widespread awareness, even among medical staff, small bowel is often not retrieved. On average, there are 25 children donating organs each year. The current list for transplants involving intestines (including combined with liver) is less than half that. Intestines are being left behind when other organs are retrieved. If all 25 donors gave all their organs, all children on the list for isolated bowel could receive their transplant. In reality, children are dying on the list because of lack of awareness.

The work that we do is to help people like William. By talking about organ donation and working to promote donation hopefully the greater the chance William will get the transplant he needs.

William is dependent on TPN, a feed that goes straight to his bloodstream through a drip 22 hours a day. Unfortunately,William is now experiencing frequent and life threatening infections in his TPN line due to his intestines leaking into his blood stream. William has been in hospital this time for over six weeks and it doesn't look as though he will be well enough to go home until he has his transplant.

Please talk about small bowel donation when you talk about organ donation and increase awareness of this area of transplantation.

Please send him and his family a message at http://sarahmilne.blogspot.com/ and keep him in your thoughts and prayers.