A toddler who became the first child in the UK to use a mobile heart has received a life-saving transplant after a two-year wait.
Grace Westwood made history when she was fitted with a Berlin Heart machine at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle. The two-year-old fell seriously ill months after being born with a damaged left ventricle in November 2019.
The Mirror reports how the device kept her alive at the hospital in High Heaton until a heart became available. It also had a battery which enabled her to move around and leave her ward.
Earlier this month, a match was found and her family received the call they had been waiting for. Grace, who is from Birmingham and has a six-year-old brother called Josh, has now received a heart transplant.
Her relieved parents Becci Jones and Darren Westwood said a thank you "just wasn’t enough" for the donor family who had saved her life. Darren said of the moment a new heart was found: "It felt surreal. Everyone was in tears." Becci added: "How do you put into words the gift they’ve given us? They’ve lost a child and have given us so much."
Doctors admit that it is rare for children to be on a Berlin Heart machine for so long. Consultant paediatric cardiologist Abbas Khushnood said her surviving so long on the machine "gives us more hope for children with heart failure to be able to get a transplant."
Chronicle Live previously reported on five families who are waiting for life-saving heart transplants for their children at the hospital. Beatrix Adamson-Archbold, Luke Myles, Ethan Mains, Nour Hussein and Leyla Bell are all currently waiting for a transplant on ward 23.
Beatrix's dad Terry Archbold previously explained how his daughter was also using a Berlin Heart device after she suffered heart failure in May. The 44-year-old said she also suffered a cardiac arrest and they had to "fight to bring her back".
Terry, from Burnopfield, County Durham, said doctors need to keep her condition stable until a new heart becomes available. However sadly there is no guarantee that she will receive one.
He said: "The difficulty with children is you are dealing with the very sensitive topic of the loss of a child. You're looking to parents at the worst possible moment of their lives, when they have lost their child and their whole world is falling apart."
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