New Year, New You? e2
Three cheers for the Jets page 34
Britain’s big issue page 12 Issue 252
Issue 257
Monday 21st January 2013 www.epigram.org.uk 25 Years of Epigram Bristol University’s Independent Student Newspaper
Organ donation campaigner Will Pope has NYE heart transplant
Marek Allen
A Bristol student’s wait for a new heart has finally ended after receiving a transplant on New Year’s Eve. Will Pope, 20, whose story has captured the attention of the nation after featuring in an ITV ‘Tonight’ documentary in November, had been on the urgent transplant list since early September. Until the operation his health had been deteriorating with doctors saying that, without a transplant, he would have just weeks to live. According to Will Pope’s mother, Rosie Pope, he is ‘taking steps in the right direction’. The situation remains positive, despite several setbacks and nervous moments for his family and friends since the operation. Will suffered a cardiac arrest on 5th January. On a blog set up to raise awareness for organ donation, Rosie Pope wrote that ‘Will had to be defibrillated and his heart massaged for half an hour. They pulled him back and put him on bypass.’ Will gradually took steps in the right direction and on 10th January he awoke to find he was the beneficiary of a new heart. His mother wrote that ‘Will has been through much. There is one certainty, which is that the transplant is just the beginning. He has been lucky enough to be given this chance. There will be battles ahead but we intend to hold on. We have the utmost confidence in the doctors, nurses, surgeons and all supporting staff at Harefield [Hospital]. And in Will.’ Will first started experiencing heart problems in 2009, but doctors were not able to identify the cause, though it is thought to have been caused by a virus. He was fitted with a Left Ventricle Assist Device (LVAD) which, combined with drug therapy, enabled his heart to rest and sufficiently recover for the device to be removed later in the year. However, upon returning from a trip to Mongolia this summer - after participating in the Mongol Rally - Will’s health began to worsen and he returned to hospital for crucial heart surgery. From September to December, he had a series of operations to fit devices to support his heart, and he was becoming increasingly weak, lacking the energy to even read a book.
Katie Jones
Alex Bradbrook Senior News Reporter
Will Pope’s wait for a new heart prompted his family to start the WillPower campaign, to raise awareness about the shortage of organ donors in the UK.
Since Will returned to hospital, the Pope family have been keeping well-wishers up to date via Twitter (@PopePower), Facebook and the Will Pope website (www.willpope.co.uk). They have also set up the WillPower campaign to raise awareness about the shortage of organ donors in this country. Will’s university friends have been highly praised by the Pope family for their role in publicising the campaign, with Rosie Pope, Will’s mother, describing them as ‘amazing’. The students have used a variety of initiatives to encourage more students to sign up to the Organ Donor Register, including setting up a Facebook group, which now has over 5000 members, publicising the cause via student media and setting up the WillPower Tree in the ASS Library in December. They have also
managed to get high-profile figures - such as Steven Fry and ITV journalist Alastair Stewart - to tweet information about the campaign to their thousands of followers, in order to publicise the cause nationally. Though it will take a long time for Will to adjust to having a donor heart, he still hopes to be well enough to come back to Bristol this autumn to continue his studies, starting his second year in Classics. The WillPower campaign is continuing to gain momentum and has been very successful in spreading much-needed awareness amongst the student body about organ donation. Currently, one in five people awaiting heart transplants die due to the shortage of organ donors in the UK. To sign up to the Organ Donor Register, and to help people like Will Pope, log onto www.organdonation.nhs.uk.
Epigram meets the sound of 2013: HAIM page 25