Sunday 12 December 2010

Felicity Gain's inspiring Leukaemia battle.But I have a question.

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I have just read a story in the Daily Mail about a model named Felicity Gain who has just been given the recipient of a bone marrow transplant after she was diagnosed last October with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia.

Now obviously I am always glad to hear of someone winning their battle with blood cancers, and of course I have in the past been involved in work for the Anthony Nolan Trust, so it came as quite a shock to read the article (posted this week) when it reported Felicity as saying

"Because I don't have any siblings we had to look for a stranger to be a donor. We were horrified to discover there's no international, centralised register of donors - who are all voluntary - and that official searches were swamped in red tape.

But Alon moved heaven and earth for me. He was so determined to find a donor for me that he joined the search, using the resources which were available, to track down a possible match. Eventually, a couple of possible donors were found and I was ecstatic at the prospect of a long term solution."


No international register of bone marrow donors!. What about the ANT or the BMDW register then?


And how on earth did Alon manage to find donors himself without any sort of assistance from any international bone marrow registration organizations?


I'm not having a go, but I think that printing this sort of mis information does little to help the work of the registers that DO exist, and who help hundreds of people every year find the "special one" to try and save their lives.


Sadly the option to comment on this article has been disabled, so I was not able to make this observation at the point of publication, so that is why I have decided to post my comments on my blog.


To read Felicity's story please click HERE.





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