Toddler goes to top of European transplant list
An 18-month-old girl who is being kept alive by an artificial heart has been put at the top of the European transplant list, a hospital said today.
Zoe Chambers, from Hull, England, is in a critical condition at the Newcastle Freeman Hospital.
She was born with a heart valve which was too narrow and she is being kept alive by a Berlin Heart, a machine that helps the human heart pump blood.
Doctors have warned her family that she urgently needs a transplant.
A spokeswoman for the hospital said: “She is still critical. She has been prioritised as number one on the European transplant list.
“Hopefully that prioritisation as number one will mean that someone will be found. But it is a case of just waiting now.”
If a suitable heart is found in any European country, it will be transported to the hospital by private aircraft.
A heart became available last week but it was decided it was too large.
Two days after she was born a scan showed that one of Zoe’s heart valves was struggling to allow blood to pass through.
She was not expected to survive beyond a few days but she has astonished doctors with her extraordinary will to live.
Her mother, Julie, told the BBC: “She is desperate. She keeps getting infection after infection. She needs a transplant as soon as possible to give her the best chance.”
She added: “We need a small heart for Zoe and the right tissue match as well.”
She said the family were bearing up, but it was getting “harder and harder”.
