For Organ Donation Week this year, we have released a brand new video aiming to get families across the UK talking about organ donation and sharing their wishes with their loved ones. The video, which includes children, families and staff from Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital (GOSH) features patients in all stages of the transplant journey. In the video we have an amazing array of people singing and Makaton-signing a cover of the award-winning Phil Collins track “You’ll Be in My Heart” from Disney’s animated film ‘Tarzan’.
The track, which also features the GOSH staff and parents choir, was produced by James Hawkins, who has collaborated with us on all our recent DVDs and CDs. He is also the musical director of BGT finalists ‘The Missing People Choir’ and the ‘Cystic Fibrosis Virtual Choir’. Jim said “It was a pleasure to work on such an emotive track for such an important cause. Singing Hands and GOSH are doing a great thing here to raise awareness of the vital need for paediatric organ donation, and it was an honour to play my part”.
As you know, we have been working at GOSH school for over 12 years and have the pleasure of singing and signing with children on the wards. But many of our long-term children are those who are in desperate need of a transplant. For some children on the cardiac ward, the only solution for them is to rely on a Berlin Heart machine (a mechanical heart) to keep them alive until they receive their transplant. You can only begin to imagine what that is like for the children and how stressful this agonising wait is for their families. This picture (below) is our little friend Elliott who spent 400 days on his Berlin Heart until he got his transplant. Thanks to the selfless and brave decision of his donor family, this lovely family are now able to spend time together at home baking scones, playing on the swings in the park and going to Elliot’s beloved London Transport Museum – he adores buses!
We also have worked with lots of children who make thrice-weekly trips to GOSH to spend hours receiving their dialysis treatment. All these children’s lives could be transformed if there was more awareness about organ donation and its benefits for others.
Right now across the UK, there are approximately 150 children on the waiting list for a life-saving transplant. Forty of those are GOSH patients needing heart, lung and kidney transplants.
As a national transplant centre, with a leading role in providing paediatric transplant care for children from all over the UK, the hospital is urging families across the UK to talk more often and more openly about organ donation in order to help save young lives.
So here’s the video – enjoy & sign along.
Do something amazing. Sign up to the NHS Organ Donation Register today.
You can register at any age – no-one is too young or too old.
https://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/
0300 123 23 23
#YesIDonate
Thank you
SMI x