Nearly half of patients waiting for organ transplants in Leicestershire are black or Asian – but a shortage of donors means they will wait three times as long as a white person for life-changing treatment.
For some, it will be too late as they will become too ill to have surgery.
Now, doctors have launched a campaign to try to persuade more young people from black and Asian backgrounds to save lives by joining the NHS organ donor register.
Richard Power, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, is working to boost numbers.
He and other doctors are holding events to raise awareness. They plan to hold stalls at events across the county, go to evening talks and continue to visit schools to talk to young people about donation.
Mr Power said: "We have been to a number of evening meetings within some of the ethnic communities which do seem to have had some positive effect.
"My view is that we need to concentrate on the youth, when many are starting to learn to drive, and going into schools to talk to them.
"These are the people who are going to be the movers and shakers in families."
A total of 216 people living in Leicestershire are waiting for transplant operations – 104 of whom are from black and ethnic communities.
Of these, one patient is waiting to have a liver transplant, and all the rest need kidney transplant operations.
There are about 250,000 Leicestershire people on the organ donor register but only an estimated 2,500 are from ethnic minority communities.
He added: "There is still a lot of work to be done as the perception is still there that organ donation is prohibited by faith but, in the majority of faiths, there is nothing which prohibits or precludes being an organ donor."
People in Asian and black communities are three times more likely to need an organ transplant than the rest of the population.
This is because they are more susceptible to developing diabetes and high blood pressure which can lead to kidney and heart failure.
Mr Power said: "The closer the genetic match between a patient and a donor the more successful the transplant is likely to be."
He spoke as new figures from NHS Blood and Transplant revealed as many as one in four families in some minority communities refuse consent for organ donation after a relative has died.
Lalit Chhatrisha, 59, had a second kidney transplant just over a year ago, in December 2009.
He had expected to wait years for the operation but his wife, Anjana, donated one of her kidneys.
Mr Chhatrisha, a pharmacist from Evington, said: "I waited five-and-a-half years for my first transplant 24 years ago and I can't imagine how long I would have waited this time. I'm sure it would've been much longer.
"The new kidney is working fine and my wife has recovered ever so well."
He added: "I think it would make a big difference if, in some communities, religious leaders spoke out. My wife and I used to go to events to promote the importance of organ donation and would often come across people who said it was their religious belief that was stopping them."
 |  |
Norway Niclas Alexandersson The Ashes Obama administration Australia Biffy Clyro
No comments:
Post a Comment