Father donates gift of life to daughter

Paddy Browne, a native of County Galway and eHealth Director of Nursing at Saolta University Health Care Group, who donated part of his liver to daughter Sadhbh is encouraging everyone and particularly organ recipients to live their best life.

Sadhbh Browne was four years old when she received a partial liver transplant from her father Paddy in 2019. Speaking about his daughter, Paddy said, “Sadhbh was born with a rare liver condition, and subsequently developed serious liver complications that required a liver transplant.  Following the transplant, Sadhbh had a long but steady road to recovery and now, thankfully, she is living her best life and will demonstrate it when she represents Transplant Sport Ireland at the British Transplant Games in Coventry from 27-30 July. I am so proud of Sadhbh and how far she has come.”

Sadhbh and Paddy will represent Ireland for the first time and join fellow athletes from Transplant Sport Ireland at the games.

The four day sports competition will see heart, lung, liver, kidney, pancreas, bone marrow transplant recipients, kidney dialysis patients and live donors from all over the UK, Ireland and Australia compete.

This year, Transplant Sport Ireland has 26 transplanted adults, 5 transplanted underage athletes, and 3 living donors competing from all around the country making it the largest ever Irish team to compete at these games. Transplant survivors including children as young as five can compete in more than 25 sports with many of them going on to compete at the World Transplant Games.

“Life is a precious gift and organ donation and transplantation offers inspiration to those who are newly transplanted or newly diagnosed with organ failure. Organ donation saves lives.  It's important to have those conversations at home and carry your organ donor card, because God forbid if the unexpected happens, there's no question as to what your wish was, added Paddy.