Plea for more kidney donors

Organisers of National Transplant Week said that less than one in five people in Wales carries a donor card - despite efforts to publicise the fact that thousands of patients are on waiting lists for transplants.

The promotional week - which runs until Sunday - hopes to improve on the current take-up.

At present only 19% of the people of Wales have signed up to the organ donor register - despite the fact that almost 9,000 people are affected by kidney disease and more than 200 are awaiting transplants.

The Helena's Hope campaign was launched earlier this year in an attempt to attract more people to carry cards.

It is spearheaded by mother-of-four Helena Jones from Neath.

Four of her children have had kidney disease - two of them now have new kidneys, and the other two are still waiting.

She feels that if more people knew the problems suffered by those forced to live on dialysis, more would come forward.

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"Maybe it's because they don't know anyone who is on dialysis, but I'm appealing to them now to at least think about carrying a card, and to speak to their families about it," she said.

Across the UK, 16% of the population - more than nine million people - are currently on the register.

The government wants to increase that number to sixteen million by 2010.

This week's UK-wide campaign is being run by Transplants in Mind. The National Kidney Research Fund is paying for 150 billboards around the UK during the week.

Sue Johnstone from Transplant in Mind said: "Encouraging the public to sign up to the NHS Organ Donor Register through this high profile billboard campaign is one major leap forward as more must be done to convince people within the UK to consider being organ donors."

People can register to be an organ donor in the UK by telephoning 0845 6060400.