LEITRIM TEENAGER Meadhbh McGivern, who missed the opportunity of a liver transplant operation in London in July because of blunders over a medical flight, left surgery last night after “a difficult and challenging operation” in London.
The operation on the 14-year- old Ballinamore teenager began at Kings College Hospital at 7am yesterday after she was flown to London by the Air Corps, following a 10pm call on Wednesday from the hospital to say that an organ was available.
“As expected, it was a difficult and challenging operation. However, the liver has now been transplanted and Meadhbh is out of theatre,” said a spokesman for King’s College, which has been contracted to provide paediatric liver operations to Irish patients since 1991.
“She is being transferred to our paediatric intensive care unit, where she will be kept under close observation. Her condition is currently stable. Meadhbh’s parents are being supported by hospital staff,” the spokesman went on.
Ms McGivern, who suffers from progressive liver disease, was flown in the early hours of yesterday from Dublin airport to Heathrow on an Air Corps Learjet after being offered a second liver in three months.
In July, surgeons had to cancel an operation after communications lapses meant that no aircraft was available to take the teenager, who has suffered from the condition since birth, in time to the world-regarded London hospital.
An investigation subsequently by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) into the case criticised the breakdown in communications that had taken place and called for a single authority to be put in charge of organising emergency medical air transport.
Following the call from Kings College Hospital, a private air-ambulance carrier, AeroMedevac Ireland, was kept on stand-by in case anything went wrong with the Defence Forces’ aircraft.
Together with her parents, Joe and Assumpta, she was rushed under a Garda escort to Baldonnel.
Speaking while the operation was still under way, Mr McGivern said: “When the call came through last night we thought, ‘Is it for real’?.
“Meadhbh was delighted and overjoyed. Until she got on the plane she was not really believing that she’d make it. Once we were in the air, then she knew.”
“We arrived at the hospital some time after 2.30am. Meadhbh was being prepared from 4am and went down to theatre just after 7am,” said Mr McGivern.
The offer of a second transplant was particularly urgent after Ms McGivern’s condition deteriorated, forcing her to spend nine days on a morphine drip in Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin.
Before the second offer of an organ from King’s College, which carries out 200 such operations every year, she had been at home, bed-bound and on morphine to limit her pain.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Today with Pat Kenny, Mr McGivern later said: “We’ve waited a long time for this moment. Hopefully it’ll give Meadhbh a quality of life she hasn’t had for a number of years now and that she’ll enjoy what’s left of her teens. She could be a hard one to hold down once she gets this new liver.”
Responding to the critical Hiqa report, the Department of Health submitted a draft plan to Hiqa to set up a national travel co-ordination centre for transplant patients, though it did not set a date for the establishment of the new service.
Once in place, the National Ambulance Service will act as the single authority when requests for an aircraft for transportation are made to either the Air Corps or Coast Guard, who have both committed to having a craft available within 15 minutes.
LEITRIM TO LONDON: MEADHBH'S JOURNEY
10pm (Wednesday)
Phone call comes through to notify Meadhbh McGivern there is a viable organ available to her.
10.10pm
She travels by car with her parents from their home in Leitrim to Baldonnel aerodrome accompanied by Garda escort
12.05am
Air Corps Learjet departs Baldonnel aerodrome
12.50am
The aircraft arrives at Heathrow airport in London and they are transferred to an ambulance
2:30am
Meadhbh arrives at King's College Hospital for surgery
7am
After pre-operative procedures, surgery begins
