Newcastle City Councillors approve Newcastle Hospitals’ plans to construct UK’s 1st dedicated Institute of Transplantation
Click here to see video from the BBC News website: Go ahead for £30m transplant unit expansion
Plans to develop the UK’s first purpose built transplantation centre at the Freeman Hospital received final approval today by Newcastle City Council’s Planning Committee.
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The Institute of Transplantation will open in the summer of 2011, providing 4 new theatres, fully equipped to undertake simultaneous organ transplants, critical care beds, general ward beds, and outpatient facilities, all providing a one-stop shop for adults who need a solid organ transplant, and enabling the Newcastle Hospitals to increase the number of organ transplants undertaken.
Sir Leonard Fenwick, Chief Executive of the Newcastle Hospitals, said: "If an organ becomes available we've got to use the existing facilities. This then demands cancellation, or else the staff have to work through the night. We'd rather be able to do this work in normal hours, and avoid cancelling other operations. So this new unit will make us more efficient, we believe we'd achieve better outcomes, and in the end we would also save money."
Freeman Hospital already undertakes a significant numbers of transplant operations each year achieving enviable patient outcomes and has had some notable ‘firsts’. 1987 saw the first successful heart transplant for a baby in the UK and the first successful single lung transplant in Europe. This was followed in 1990 by the first successful double lung transplant in Europe.
Freeman Hospital was the first to offer routine laparoscopic removal of kidneys when a live donation is being made. This technique, which uses keyhole surgery, is of great benefit to the donor as the post operative recovery time is reduced and the donor will only have a very small scar.
Newcastle Hospitals’ has not rested on its laurels undertaking in 2002 the first non-heart beating lung transplant in the UK and in 2008 the first Pancreas Islet transplant in the North East, a technique used to help diabetic patients who suffer life threatening episodes because they do not recognise the symptoms of dangerously low blood sugar levels.
March 2009 brought another first when two babies, who coincidently live within streets of each other in Whitley Bay, were successfully given new hearts on the same day.
Later this year Freeman Hospital will be starting a live liver donation programme, where a healthy person donates part of their liver to someone with liver failure. This is possible because the liver is a remarkable organ which will regenerate within weeks if part of it is removed.
Newcastle Hospitals’ has always been firmly committed to helping people benefit from transplantation and wants to ensure that the people of the North East and patients referred from further a field benefit from the most up to date facilities.
Transplantation can not occur without people making the most precious and altruistic ‘gift of life’, the people of the North East have always stepped up to the mark, this region has the highest organ donation rates per million of population in the UK. Newcastle Hospitals’ endeavours to support this wonderful attitude to organ donation by providing an expert team of professionals’ able to respond within extremely short timescale so that transplants can be performed. Building the Institute of Transplantation will make it possible to undertake more life saving operations.
Professor Derek Manas, Lead for Solid Organ Transplantation and Transplant Surgeon Newcastle Hospitals’ said “Having been a transplant surgeon for 20 years I have always felt privileged to be part of what I think is probably the most pioneering and exciting branch of surgery. This development will bring together transplant physicians, surgeons, and scientists and patients will benefit from a truly multi-disciplinary team approach to transplantation”
