Health Minister makes organ donor plea in Tower Hamlets

A HEALTH minister was urging East Enders to donate their organs when she dropped into the Royal London Hospital. With three people dying each day because they cannot get an organ transplant and east London having one of the worst donation rates in the c

A HEALTH minister was urging East Enders to donate their organs when she dropped into the Royal London Hospital.

With three people dying each day because they cannot get an organ transplant and east London having one of the worst donation rates in the country, Anne Milton was talking transplants when she visited the hospital's renal unit.

Her visit was part of Transplant Week and she talked to doctors and nurses about how to broach the subject of donations to relatives after their loved ones have died at the hospital.

She said more needed to be done within the NHS, with more dedicated members of staff on-hand and doctors better prepared to speak to patients' families about making a donation.

The former nurse said: "The difficulty is that the time that people think about donating is in the middle of very sad time for them.

"But we need people to be aware of this before they are in the midst of a personal trauma.

"They need to know how they can give a gift to somebody else and see it as an opportunity to transform somebody's life.