NATIONAL TRANSPLANT WEEK

That this House expresses its admiration for the organ transplant programme carried out within the National Health Service by individual hospitals and supported by the United Kingdom Transplant Service during the past 20 years during which nearly 20,000 persons have received a kidney, more than 8,000 a cornea, 1,700 a heart, more than 1,300 a liver, 461 heart and lungs, 114 one lung and 37 a pancreas; commends the organ donation scheme that has made these individual gifts of life a reality; salutes the surgeons and their medical teams, for their skill and expertise in transplant surgery and the pharmaceutical companies who have pioneered the anti-rejection drugs which have extended the effective life of all forms of transplant; and urges the Government to consider every possible way of increasing the supply of organs by voluntary donation so as to greatly reduce the existing waiting lists for transplants particularly among kidney patients.