UK: Why I wanted to donate a kidney to a complete stranger

[Clark]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/11052842/Why-I-wanted-to-donate-a-kidney-to-a-complete-stranger.html

Why I wanted to donate a kidney to a complete stranger
By Anna Van Praagh

There has been a dramatic rise in kidney donations, thanks to altruists who give an organ so that a stranger might live. We hear the stories of three donors and the people they helped

When Claire Ramsden heard a man on the radio describing a humbling act of altruism, she found it so moving that it wasn't long before she was on the phone to the hospital to enquire about having the operation herself.
“I decided a few years ago not to have children,” says the 38-year-old psychologist from Preston, Lancashire, “and as part of reaching that conclusion, I thought, if I’m not going to create a life, why not try to save one? When I heard about kidney donation I thought, brilliant! This can be my contribution.”
The world may seem like an increasingly selfish place, but the announcement last week that there has been a dramatic rise in the number of altruistic kidney donors – people having a kidney removed and donating it to a complete stranger – was a moment of selfless good news.
Altruistic kidney donation has, in the past year, increased by 55 per cent, with 118 living people donating a kidney. The practice only became legal in 2006, and the following year only six procedures were recorded. Since then the numbers have risen exponentially.
Transplant experts believe that cases such as that of the 85-year-old woman who this year became Britain’s oldest living kidney donor – “Why do I need two kidneys to sit at home knitting and watching television?”, she asked – have inspired others to follow suit.

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