Michaela’s fight for survival
Woman’s appeal for transplant op
By Brendan McDaid
27 June 2006
An Ulster woman who was told she was too ill to undergo a life-saving operation today said she will fight to get back on the hospital transplant list.
Derry woman Michaela McKinney (34) has now been told that she has only three weeks to live.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan today vowed to fight for patients’ right to have a say in whether they undergo life-saving organ transplant surgery.
He spoke out after Ms McKinney’s name was struck off the transplant waiting list at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Ms McKinney, from Linsfort Drive in Creggan, has made plans for her funeral and today said her life has been left in ruins after she was deemed by a medical panel to be too ill to undergo a heart and lung transplant.
Ms McKinney, who was diagnosed with a congenital heart condition at the age of nine, was taken off the list after her kidneys failed earlier this year.
She said: “I am sort of left in limbo now and I want to fight to get back on the list.
“These are ordinary people like me - the only difference is they have a degree - making decisions on my life. I want to live and I want a transplant. I think it should be down to each individual whether they would be prepared to take the risk.”
Ms McKinney said she has been told her case would be reviewed if her condition improves, but she said her kidneys had failed in the first place because of the condition of her heart.
She said: “I want the chance for me to put my case across to them. I am sitting here thinking - am I going to see Christmas?”
Ms McKinney said she arranged her own funeral recently after being told she might have only weeks to live.
“I had prepared myself to die. Then I was lying on the dialysis saying ‘I don’t want to die yet. I am only 34′,” she said.
Ms McKinney said that when she was a baby, her mother had tried to alert doctors that there was a problem with her.
She said: “If I had had the operation to relieve the symptoms earlier, this would have been a whole different ball game, but by the age of nine a lot of the damage had already been done. “I feel like I have been failed twice.”
Foyle MP Mr Durkan added: “This is Catch 22 for her and I will be making representations to see whether or not this decision on Michaela can be reviewed.
“Also the Government is repeatedly emphasising the importance of patients having their views, choices and input heard, and this is something I want to raise at a higher level.
“Nobody is pretending that transplant surgery is not delicate, but the fact is we are talking about life or death here.”
A spokeswoman for the Freeman Hospital said today patients were removed from the transplant list if it was believed they might not survive the operation.
“We do not get that many hearts and lungs, and we want them to work,” she said.
“The door is kept open and if we are asked by a patient’s consultant to review them, we will review them.”
People can register to be donors on-line on www.uktransplant.org.uk
