Urgent plea for kidney donor for 12-year-old boy in Leeds council care

The 12-year-old, who has chronic kidney failure, is gravely ill and needs a matching donor to help save his life.

But in a highly unusual step it is Leeds City Council (LCC) that has asked directly for help as he has been looked after in care since 2022.

Jack, although his real name is hidden to protect his identity, has been in and out of hospital for weeks now as recent complications take hold.

He spends his time building Lego, watching YouTube and doing his schoolwork, nurses said, but he asks every day if a donor has been found.

Janine Craven, delivery manager in LCC's children and families service, said: “This is a lovely young boy who has very sadly spent most of his childhood in and out of hospital.

“We have been told by his medical team that if his current treatment fails, there are no other options left for him."

Jack was diagnosed with chronic kidney failure when he was just ten months old and has been on the transplant waiting list since 2019.

As his condition worsens, doctors have warned that he is now on his last treatment option – putting his future at real risk unless a kidney donor is found.

Four years ago, his kidneys failed and he was placed on a form of dialysis which could be administered at home overnight. It meant he could go about his days as normally as possible but there have been complications in the last few weeks and he now has to be hooked up to hospital machines.

“We’re told this is the last form of dialysis he can have and it also comes with its own risks, which increase the longer he is receiving it," said Ms Craven. "A kidney transplant is now his best option.”

Potential donors must be aged 18 to 55, they must be a UK resident and cannot have diabetes, a BMI over 30, or be receiving treatment for cancer.

A healthy donor can live a normal life with one kidney. Surinder Sapal, a trainee consultant radiographer at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, has been through the process herself.

She donated a kidney to a stranger- a two-year-old girl in Newcastle who is now thriving. The mum-of-two, from Wakefield, said she would do it again in a heartbeat, to see the milestones the little girl has since reached. She added: “This child needs your help."

And Coun Helen Hayden, the council's executive member for children and families, said the more people who come forward the better the chance there is to find a match.

“Please help us to find this 12-year-old boy a kidney," she said.

“To publicly appeal like this about a child in our care is a first for us at the council but we strongly feel this action should be taken, and urgently, to help him.

“Dialysis is keeping him alive at the moment but is a dire way to live and without it, he would die."

Potential donors can email [email protected].

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