SWANSEA: “He saved three people’s lives that night”: the families who said yes to organ donation, thanked at the Mansion House

Christine Gamble says it gave her family peace to know that Phillip, her daughter Emma’s dad, saved three people’s lives in a single night.

They were among the donor families thanked at a tea party at Swansea’s Mansion House, hosted by the Lord Mayor and organised by Swansea Bay University Health Board for Organ Donation Week, which runs until Sunday.

The health board says that across Wales, fewer people are signalling they want to donate their organs after death, while the number waiting for one has risen.

“The light in that moment was the nurse”

Christine said the family had already agreed they would donate if they could. “The ITU nurses were absolutely amazing and they didn’t have to say donation, I just went up to the nurse and said, ‘You know he’s on the donor list?’”

For Emma, the hardest moment was being told nothing more could be done for her dad. “I always say, to this day, that the light in that moment was the nurse,” she said.

“She said, ‘You know your dad’s got a real opportunity now to save lives?’. It was a really dark time yet it made a shining light to it.”

The family has since heard that the three recipients were doing well. “That’s all I wanted to know, that they were okay,” Christine said.

“Every person can save somebody else”

Andrea Wallace’s sister, Judy Finley, died in hospital in Swansea last December, and her organs went to three people.

It was Judy’s four children who decided, Andrea said. “I sat in the background and supported the four of them as they made the decision together. How they came together to do that was really, really special.”

“As an aunty, I am so proud of them. And my sister would be so proud of them.”

Her message to anyone who hasn’t thought about it is simple. “Definitely talk about it and make your wishes known,” she said. “Every person can save somebody else.”

About 350 people in Wales are waiting, and nine a week die waiting across the UK

Kathryn Gooding, the specialist nurse for organ donation in Swansea Bay, said donations after death had “declined sharply over the last year”.

Nine people a week die waiting for a transplant across the UK, she said. The UK waiting list stands at more than 8,700, around 250 of them children, and about 350 people in Wales are waiting.

She said families find comfort when a loved one has registered their decision. “It offers them clarity so they can support what their loved one would have wanted.”

That matters because under Wales’s opt-out system, donation can still only go ahead with family support.

The Lord Mayor, Cllr Penny Matthews, told the families: “When the world felt like it was breaking apart, you chose to put it back together for someone else.”

Emma has already taken the message to work. “I got one of my colleagues to sign up yesterday, with it being Organ Donation Week,” she said. “If everyone talks to 10 people and gets one person signed up, it helps.”

You can register your decision on the NHS Organ Donation website.