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Irish PostTHESERVING THE IRISH COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN SINCE 1970

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CORR ON TOURSharon Corr strikes outon her own with a British tourSee page 12

ACO. LEITRIM family willnot have to move toBritain while their daugh-

ter waits for a vital organ donorhere.

Ballinamore teenager Mead-hbh McGivern is on a prioritylist for receiving an organ from anon-heartbeating donor.

The 14-year-old made head-lines last month when a series oftransport failures in Irelandmeant she could not be airliftedto King’s College Hospital in Lon-don for a liver transplant.

A Health Information andQuality Authority report thisweek recommended that theHSE should ensure that parentsof potential liver transplantpatients were involved in dis-cussions about the logistics ofallocating an organ for theirchild.

The report said parents ofpatients who live more thanthree hours’ travel time from theBritish hospital where the opera-tion will be carried out shouldpossibly consider relocating toDublin or London.

But dad Joe McGivern saidplans are now in place to ensurethat Meadhbh would be able totravel to London in sufficienttime if they receive news ofanother donor organ. And so thefamily will continue to live inLeitrim.

“We have checked with King’sCollege Hospital and there is a

window of between four andeight hours for donors of non-heartbeating donors,” MrMcGivern said.

Meadhbh is now going into hersecond consecutive year on adonor waiting list.

“I think she holds the hon-ourable title of being the longestchild ever on the liver transplantwaiting list in Ireland,” her dadsaid.

Mr McGivern has alsorevealed he has alternative trans-port plans in case no aircraft isavailable from the Air Corps orIrish Coast Guard when anotherorgan becomes available.

He said he has arranged to usea private air ambulance locatedat Weston Airport in Leixlip, Co.Kildare and that the familywould start travelling towardsDublin as soon as they got anoth-er call about a donor organ.

That would give them theoption of using aircraft based atDublin Airport, Baldonnel andWeston.

The HIQA report, commis-sioned by Irish Health MinisterJames Reilly, looked into why noaircraft was available to trans-port Meadhbh to London on July2 in time to avail of the livertransplant.

It said the lack of a single coor-dinating agency or individualwith overall charge of a patient’stransport arrangements was toblame for the failure.

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Meadhbh McGivern with parents Joe and Assumpta. Inset: Chief Executive of the Health Information and Quality Authority Tracey Cooper during thelaunch of a report which details the findings of the Meadhbh McGivern inquiry. Main picture: Brian Farrell