The agonising wait for an organ donor: ‘I’m always waiting for the call’

At just 22 years old, Eman David has spent much of her life in and out of hospital.

Diagnosed with kidney failure at seven, she was handed a lifeline in 2014 when she had a successful kidney transplant , which allowed her to finally enjoy her childhood.

But in 2021, she received the heartbreaking news that her body had started to reject the organ and that she would need another transplant. Six years later, she is still waiting.

“Right now I’m just doing maths at college. But I can’t focus on anything but dialysis and the transplant and when they’re going to call me.”

“I’m always looking at my phone, I’m always thinking that it’s them [the hospital] calling me.”

Ms David, from Manchester, is one of 8,700 patients in the UK waiting for an organ transplant – a record high – with nine people a week dying while waiting to get a lifesaving call, according to NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) . At this rate, it could mean 468 deaths by next summer if nothing changes.

The situation has reached crisis point and is now so concerning that NHSBT, the body responsible for organ donation, has had to take the “unprecedented” move to trigger its “urgent” organ donation response plan.

John Richardson, assistant director of Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation, told The Independent : “In organ donation, it’s unprecedented that we’ve moved to this footing; it’s the highest list we’ve seen. Up to nine people each week will die waiting for an organ transplant, so it is significant.”

Despite a change in the law to introduce opt-out donations – which assumes people have opted in to donate organs unless they have explicitly stated otherwise – families can still decline a deceased relative’s wishes. The latest data shows family consent rates have dropped from 67 per cent in 2020-21 to 57 per cent last year.

Mr Richardson explained the issue likely driving this is that people do not make their wishes clear by registering to donate, and so families who don’t know what their loved one wanted can often decline donation.

She is one of the 80 per cent of transplant waiting list patients waiting for a kidney, with 7,200 currently in limbo.

Ms David and her parents were first told she would need a transplant and weekly dialysis when she was seven.

“Since then I’ve just had to basically live at Manchester Royal Infirmary. I think I missed about two, three years of primary school.”

At 11, Ms David and her family got some hope, and she received a kidney from a donor.