Transplant girl home after 18-month hospital stay

A girl who spent nearly two years in hospital waiting for a heart transplant is now back home and celebrating her fourth birthday.

Amelia, from Chippenham, Wiltshire, was born nine weeks early in January 2021 but developed normally until her health deteriorated in the summer of 2022.

In 2023, she was featured in a national NHS campaign to highlight the number of children waiting for a transplant - currently around 290.

She finally received her transplant last spring and her mum Jodie said: "Amelia is so much happier now and has so much more freedom."

Amelia contracted sepsis and pneumonia before being listed for a transplant and was put on a Berlin heart - a machine which takes over some or all of the heart's functions.

This meant staying at Great Ormond Street Hospital from autumn 2022.

"We were waiting for 18 months at Great Ormond Street Hospital on the Berlin heart," Jodie told BBC Radio Wiltshire.

"We had a lot of ups and downs and kept dreaming about the day we got the call and went home to be a family of four."

She said Amelia had been doing well since the transplant and the family celebrated her first Christmas at home last year.

"We enjoy the little things that everyone takes for granted like having a bath/shower, going to the park or just out for a walk, seeing family/friends and even going to nursery and so much more," she said.

"We have done so much since her transplant, we have gone on holiday, to the beach, swimming, parks, pumpkin picking, baking cakes, Amelia goes to nursery and we were very excited about Christmas."

The family has an exciting year ahead, with Jodie expecting a baby boy in May and getting married to the children's father in August.

"As a family, we are forever grateful to Amelia's donor family for saying yes to organ donation and there's not enough words in the world to say thank you," she said.

"We just hope and pray more people say yes to organ donation, one person can save up to nine lives and a little bit of them will always live on."

According to NHS data, in January around 290 children were on the waiting list for an organ transplant in the UK.

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