Transcript of an interview by Rae Lamb with Bethli Wainwright, on Checkpoint, National Radio, on Wednesday 25th July, 2001, re live liver transplants.

Rae:  The National Liver Transplant Unit in Auckland has been given approval to start performing transplants using pieces of liver from live donors.  The Unit's Director Professor Stephen Munn, says healthy livers can regenerate quickly, and donor's livers are back to normal size six weeks after the operation, but the risk of death is about 30 times higher for such donors, compared with those giving one of their kidneys.  When Bethli Wainwright from Auckland had a liver transplant last August, her Mother was not allowed to donate live tissue, and instead a donor organ was used.  She says there are many issues involved.

Bethli:  I think it gives some people potentially a little bit more hope, because there is such a shortage of organ donors in New Zealand, and there is also not very much awareness of organ donor issues, so the fact that a member of your family could volunteer to be tested to become a live organ donor, I think would give many people that ray of hope, as well as  I think add a lot of family stress to a really, really tiring situation.

Rae:  What difference would it have made to you and your family if you had been able to have a live transplant?

Bethli:  I would have been very concerned about my Mother, because she had mentioned to the Professor at the Liver Unit that she would consider that option, and I would have been concerned for her wellbeing, because I am aware there are a lot of risks involved in this.  I understand that it is still one in one hundred who die.

Rae: But presumably it would have been, would at least have given your family a second option at that time when, you know, it was determined you had to have the operation, and they were searching around for a donor organ.

Bethli:  It certainly would have, but again it is not the kind of thing you want to imagine your Mother going through for you.  It is a very, I think, emotional situation to be faced with, because you can cope, I think, with pain and suffering to yourself a lot more easily than you can to somebody else that you love.

Rae: So what was your Mother told when she offered to give you some of, a piece of her liver, and was actually refused at the time because obviously approval hadn't been granted.

Bethli: Yes, she was told at that stage it was a high risk, and that it wasn't allowable in New Zealand, so it wasn't going to be discussed or considered.  She was certainly willing to discuss it further, and she mentioned it a number of times because she was very, very worried, and said she would do anything at all to keep me alive.

Rae: So you are talking really about two people's lives here not just one?

Bethli: Yes, yes, because it could be a member of your family, it could be a very close friend who said they were going to volunteer to be that donor, and I think that whole situation is just incredibly emotionally tense, as to what if something did go wrong, and what if that person was the one in one hundred that did die - have they really thought through that they could be giving you their life when they are making that decision, so not only is this a very exciting development in New Zealand, I think any family in that situation is not to be envied because the amount of stress on that kind of decision making is incredible.

Rae: What would you say to people who are waiting for transplants who no doubt will be excited about today's news.

Bethli: It's the kind of situation, I think, that needs to be thought about very carefully.  I don't think any member of a family should feel any pressure to become a donor, or even to be tested to become a donor, but if anybody in that family volunteered to be tested, then I think the family needs to sit down and say, what would the ramifications be if it all went wrong.

Rae:  Bethli Wainwright.  The fifteen patients currently waiting for liver transplants are now being notified about the new option.  The Liver Transplant Unit has not identified any candidates for the new procedure.

Transcribed by Robin Wainwright (the Mother)

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