Bereaved daughter calls for more kidney donors

A woman who lost her mother to kidney disease is backing a national campaign urging people to become living donors.

Aneesa Chaudhry, from Brighton, said she is backing the Make Your Mark campaign after she lost her mother Annsa in 2001, after waiting 10 years for a donor.

The campaign will see an installation erected in a shop window at the Bluewater Shopping Centre in Kent which will feature a living kidney donor, along with six mannequins.

The mannequins represent the six people a day across the UK who die while waiting for a kidney transplant.

Ms Chaudhry urged people to consider the difference it could make to families.

She said: "The sweet gift of life is something which we all take for granted. If you can help someone live, what better gift is there?"

George Cannon from Ramsgate, Kent, and John Burns from Bromley in London are living donors who will be taking part in the Bluewater display.

Mr Burns said: "I read an article about a woman who had given a kidney to someone she didn't know, and it instantly struck a chord.

"The more people who talk about it, the more kidney donation drifts out of the realm of extreme altruism and into the normal range of what people can do."

Mr Cannon later received a card from the recipient of his kidney.

"It was a little girl who was on dialysis for 12 hours a day and couldn't be a kid, couldn't run around and see her friends," he said.

"The card just said 'thank you, we've got our little girl back'.

"At the end of the day, someone is still alive because of my donation."

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