Latest news with #KayleeDavidsonOlley
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Wearside stories you might have missed this week
From jubilant lottery winners to Elon Musk-style spending reviews - here are some of the stories from Wearside you might have missed this week. A builder who won £1m on the National Lottery says he has fulfilled "every parent's dream" by paying off his four daughters' mortgages. Terry Gillings, of Stanley, County Durham, said he would "never forget" phoning his children to tell them about the win. However, the triumph was accompanied by heartbreak as his 85-year-old father, who had prostate cancer and Parkinson's disease, died two days later. "I like to think knowing [my wife] Caroline and I, and the girls, were all well set up for the future meant he slipped away more peacefully," Mr Gillings said. A woman who was the first baby to have a heart transplant in the UK says families should not be able to overturn a loved one's decision to donate their organs. Family-blocked donations have almost tripled from 255 in 2020/21 to 680 in 2023/24, according to official figures, leading to an estimated 2,040 "missed opportunities" last year. Kaylee Davidson-Olley, from Houghton-le-Spring, who had transplant surgery at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital in 1987, said lives were continuing to be lost. NHS Blood and Transplant said families were "always involved" in donation and they might have important information which was vital in understanding whether organs were safe for donation. A festival has been cancelled after attempts to save it failed, organisers have said. Northern Kin was due to take place at Thornley Hall farm, in County Durham, at the beginning of August. Organiser Wannasee Ltd had previously said discussions were under way to preserve the festival after 10 of its other events, including Stone Valley North and Kubix, were cancelled at the end of May. But a social media post on Wednesday confirmed Northern Kin would not be going ahead, despite the team having worked "around the clock" to find a way to run it. A council is set to undergo an Elon Musk-style review into its spending. Reform UK, which took charge of Durham County Council following the elections in May, has set up a unit to look into "wasteful spending", inspired by Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) in the United States. The party said teams of software engineers, data analysts and forensic auditors would "visit and analyse" the local authorities it controlled, starting with Kent County Council this week. Promoting the party's scheme, Durham County Council leader Andrew Husband posted on social media: "Coming to a county near you." Follow BBC Sunderland on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
BBC News
6 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Houghton heart donation recipient calls for change in rules
A woman who was the first baby to have a heart transplant in the UK says families should not be able to overturn a loved one's decision to donate their donations have almost tripled from 255 in 2020/21 to 680 in 2023/24, according to official figures, leading to an estimated 2,040 "missed opportunities" last Davidson-Olley, from Houghton-le-Spring, who had transplant surgery at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital in 1987, said lives were continuing to be Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) said families were "always involved" in donation and they might have "important information" which was vital in understanding whether organs were safe for donation. Last year, families refusing donation gave reasons including not knowing what the patient wanted, feeling the donation process took too long, not wanting any further surgery to the body, or it was against religious and cultural research carried out by Bangor University found some families did not understand the soft opt-out laws, introduced in England in 2020, where patients are presumed to have given consent for donation unless they specifically opted out of the organ donation register. "The knock-on impact is lives won't be saved, it's as simple as that. Organs need to be used here, not in heaven," Ms Davidson-Olley, now 38, said."The figures [for organ donations] are extremely low, and we need to boost that up and we need public help to do that."Ms Davidson-Olley praised the NHS, but said the sole decision to remain opted-in to the Organ Donation Register should be honoured, where appropriate. According to the NHS, for every one donor, an average of three organs can be transplanted, potentially saving additional lives."You're giving a life, you're giving a gift, look at me 38 years post-transplant - I love my life and I couldn't be thankful enough to what I've been given," Ms Davidson-Olley said."Have the conversation [with your family] and share your wishes." Figures from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 showed that 140 families overruled a patient's "opt-in decision". A further 540 families did not support "deemed consent", where there is no expressed decision and so the patient is assumed to support organ all those cases, no donation went ahead. Terry Archbold previously told the BBC he and his partner were split over organ donation after their daughter Isabel was his partner Cheryl agreed, Mr Archbold said he had initially refused organ donation as he had never given the subject consideration, and a "protective instinct kicked in" that "didn't want anyone to touch her".However, it was only after having a discussion he said he realised they would be "hopefully saving other parents from experiencing the same feelings we had". Families consulted A spokesperson for NHSBT said families were often aware of a patient's "medical, travel and social history" and which was "vital to understanding" whether their organs were "safe to transplant", or had more recent information than a decision recorded on the donor said while families were expected to support a patient's decision to donate, the circumstances in which a person died were "often very sudden and traumatic", and said it was encouraging people to be clear with family members about their wishes."Families are far more likely to support donation when they already know it was what their relative wanted," the spokesperson said."Almost 90% of people honoured their family members decision last year when they had either registered their decision to donate on the NHS Organ Donor Register or had spoken with their family about wanting to be an organ donor."The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it was encouraging everybody to "register their decision" which "only takes two minutes and could save up to nine lives".A spokesperson added the DHSC was making it "as easy as possible" for those to record their preference on the register. Follow BBC Sunderland on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
