AS part of our Sign Up To Save Lives campaign, The Bolton News will be talking to the medical experts who carry out the life-saving operations. Charlotte Dobson reports.

PROFESSOR Nizar Yonan is a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon and director of transplantation at the University Hospital of South Manchester in Wythenshawe.

Every week he carries out life-saving heart and lung transplants for patients across the North West and is now backing The Bolton News’ Sign Up To Save Lives campaign.

Prof Yonan has carried out hundreds of transplants over his career yet says he still finds successful organ donation “a miracle”.

He also believes it is vital more people sign up to the Organ Donor Register.

Prof Yonan, who is orginally from Iraq but has worked at Wythenshawe Hospital for 32 years, said: “Without the donors, there would not be any transplants.

“All those people in need of an organ, whether it be with a kidney or heart, would not have been able to have a meaningful existence without a donor.

“Someone waiting for a kidney transplant will have to be hooked up to a dialysis machine for four hours, three times a week. That is no life.

“People with heart and lung failure cannot do anything. It’s not just about living and not living but about the quality of that person’s life.

“When it reaches the end stage and that transplant is the patient’s last resort, it is a miracle.”

Prof Yonan has carried out hundreds of transplants over his career and says it is vital more people sign up to the Organ Donor Register.

He added: “We all potentially may need an organ at any stage of our lives. It has been proven that we are more likely to be a recipient rather than a donor in our life-time, and have never met many people who do not want a transplant.

“Is it not logical then that you should sign up to the register and potentially give others that gift? If not, your organs will simply go to waste.

“If you think about a loved one’s organs being donated, it is almost as though part of them is living on within another person. It cannot be anything but positive. It’s the circle of life.”

To Sign Up To Save Lives, go to the NHS organ donor register at organdonation.nhs.uk, call 0300 1232323 or text SAVE to 62323.

  • Have you been saved by an organ donation or are you on the list waiting for a donation? Contact The Bolton News on 01204 537270 or newsdesk@theboltonnews.co.uk