COUPLE ISSUE PLEA FOR ORGAN DONORS

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COUPLE ISSUE PLEA FOR ORGAN DONORS

A Highland couple who have been waiting almost two years for a liver transplant for their young daughter yesterday appealed for more people to carry a donor card.Two-year-old Aimee Gallon, from Sutherland, was just five-and-a-half-weeks old when she was diagnosed with a rare liver condition, which has left her with jaundice.Although she underwent a battery of tests and a serious operation before she was six weeks old, doctors are unable to cure her condition without a liver transplant.While her parents, Nicola Hughan, 25, and gamekeeper Gallon, 34, wait for the call telling them a matching organ has been found, Aimee has to take up to 10 doses of medication every day.The couple, who live on the Skibo Estate, have to wake up to eight times during the night to feed their daughter milk with extra nutrients, in an effort to keep her at a healthy weight.Now Miss Hughan, who supervises night cleaning staff at Skibo, has given her backing to a campaign for a system of "presumed consent" for organ dona-tion.Under the scheme, about which Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon has said she is "increasingly sympathetic", people would have to actually opt out of the organ donor scheme.Miss Hughan said: "We didn't think about organ donation at all until we had Aimee - it wasn't part of our lives."Too many people don't think about, or don't tell anyone their wishes."It's a difficult issue, and I know we're obviously very biased, but I do think there has to be a lot more publicity of children and adults who are affected by the lack of transplant organs."Miss Hughan, who has trained as a nurse, was told her daughter had biliary atresia after undergoing a series of tests, including a liver biopsy, in Aberdeen, in December 2005.Around 80 babies in the UK are diagnosed with the disease every year.It is caused when the bile duct becomes blocked, leading to a build-up of bile in the liver, effectively poisoning the organ.An operation, taking part of Aimee's bowel to form a duct to drain the bile from the liver, was partially successful.Now she is reasonably healthy, she is still on the list for a transplant, but she is not at the top.If her condition deteriorates, her parents intend to undergo the tests needed to give her part of one of their livers, but for now the couple are trying to ensure Aimee leads as normal a life as possible, even enrolling her in a nursery at Alness.Miss Hughan said: "We were very shocked when she was diagnosed."We are worried every time she gets ill - she just has to get a temperature and we panic."But we try to be quite relaxed because she's so well herself. After two years, we have to be normal for Aimee so she can lead a normal life."It's not quite a laid-back approach through, we're still always waiting for the phone call to come."

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