Hundredth NI kidney donation saves life of six-year-old stranger

A 40-year-old woman from County Down has become the 100th person from Northern Ireland to donate a kidney to a stranger.

Aly Coyle helped a six-year-old boy from England she had never met by donating so he could undergo a successful life-saving kidney transplant in January.

The significant achievement is being hailed as a landmark moment for organ donation and was marked at a special reception at Stormont on Wednesday, where Aly met Anne Page, the first person to donate to a stranger in Northern Ireland.

"It makes me feel I have done something really worthwhile and I have helped someone for a long time to come," said Aly.

Donating a kidney to stranger was initially illegal in the UK until shortly before 2011.

Aly said her motivation to donate her kidney was her friend who is undergoing dialysis and is still waiting for a donor.

"Initially I went to get tested to see if I was a match for him and I wasn't, but thought if I was considering donating to one person I may as well do it for someone else."

Aly said the whole process was very straightforward.

"It was so easy from start to finish, the team is incredible and you feel so cared for. Four weeks out I am back to 95% fitness, and climbed Cavehill last weekend."

Speaking at the Stormont reception, Anne Page said she has "never looked back from the day and hour" she donated.

She gave one of her kidneys to a man from London, after she discovered her father-in-law and good friend were both on kidney dialysis.

"My message to others is this is a very worthwhile thing to do and you can save someone's life.

"When I received the first letter from the man I helped it was sad to hear what he had been through, 11 years of dialysis, and it made me feel very humble.

"When he said thank you, well, you still have a wee tear now and again," she added.

Aly said she has a nephew the same age as the boy who received her kidney.

"Knowing I have helped someone like my nephew makes me feel really good.

"When I am 60 years old, my kidney will be going to university with him."

Anne said being the first to donate a kidney to a stranger intrigued many people.

"People were standing outside my door in the hospital ward saying: 'Is this the lady in here?'

"To realise there are now 100 people who have done it is marvellous."

Health Minister Mike Nesbitt, who also attended the event, said it was "a pleasure to meet such altruistic people who have such a sense of humanity".

"I spend a lot of my time facing the challenges of how we do things better, so it's such a joy to say the renal unit is world class - and I repeat it is world class.

"We should celebrate people like Anne and Aly who are so selfless that they prepared to give part of their body, one of their organs, to help someone they don't know."

Consultant Aisling Courtney, who manages the living donation transplant programme, said it was encouraging to see Anne and Aly looking so well "having made such a different in the world".

"I think in Northern Ireland we are a quite an altruistic group of people and our goal in the programme is to make it as easy as possible to donate."

"It's beautiful to see the early and late results of how you can come in with two healthy kidneys - yes you have a little pain and discomfort, but the recovery is quick."

It is not the first time that the renal team at Belfast City Hospital has made headlines.

In 2020, a record number of 137 life-saving kidney transplants were performed in Northern Ireland.

More than 100 of those operations were carried out during the Covid-19 pandemic and included a UK record-equalling five kidney transplants in one 24-hour period.

Five years earlier the same record was achieved with five transplants in a single day.

At the end of 2023 a three year old boy, Olly Cartmill, became the smallest and one of the youngest, recipients of a kidney transplant.