PARENTS OF the girl who become the longest survivor with a mechanical heart in Ireland have appealed for a change in the organ donation system following her death.
Dublin girl Kiva Humphries (16) died at the Mater hospital last Friday having spent more than 16 months in hospital.
She had been on the heart transplant list since last July and had recently received a heart transplant but did not survive due to the length of time she had spent on the mechanical heart.
“The heart she had wished for finally arrived but such was her fate that it was truly too late. Had it come at an earlier time, things might have been different,” her parents Joe and Avril Humphries said in a statement.
Kiva Humphries first went into hospital in January of last year when she began having difficulty breathing. Her heart muscles degenerated so much that, in April 2008, she was fitted with a ventricular-assisted device.
She came through two strokes and a severe hospital-related virus that struck after the irreversible operation to fit her mechanical heart. Kiva was “reasonably content” for her last few months.
She was “learning to walk, albeit aided, and dancing, unaided and out of sight of senior staff”, her parents said.
They praised the Mater hospital for everything it did for their daughter.
Yesterday her parents renewed their appeal for the implementation of an opt-out (presumed consent) system for organ donation.
They also called for a centralised system for the identification and retrieval of donors and organs to be set up.
Kiva is survived by her parents Joe and Avril and her younger siblings Robert and Alexandra. Her funeral takes place in Foxrock this morning.
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