Ella Wiseman, a toddler from Douglas who had a heart transplant, is featured in an article on organ donation in the Daily Mail.

The article, published last Thursday, features six young children from Britain whose lives have been saved by organ donations.

It urges people - and particularly parents of young children - to opt into automatic organ donation which will become law, but not until 2020.

Consent rates from parents are historically lower says the NHS Blood and Transplant service - and there are currently 165 children on the organ transplant waiting list - but the service finds grieving parents derive immense comfort from the fact that their loss has helped other children to live.

Ella was 10 months old when they first found out something was wrong with her, said her mum Amy Ash.

They spent eight months ’going back and forth to Alder Hey as she just kept getting worse so in the end they sent us to the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle for a heart transplant assessment,’ she said .

’We were only in this hospital for about two days before they told us Ella has not got dilated cardiomyopathy, she actually had a rare condition called abnormal coronary artery and would have had it from birth, the left side of her heart has been starved of oxygen since she was born but they’d caught it too late.’

Ella, then aged 22 months, was rushed into the operating theatre on October 30 2017, after a five-month wait on life support in Newcastle.

The whole ordeal was made easier by the charity The Sick Children’s Trust, who provided a free room in a ’Home From Home’ Scott House, minutes away from the hospital.

Grateful

Today Ella is ’amazing’ said Amy.

She goes to nursery at Little Darlings, in Douglas, twice a week and is like any other three-year-old.

But there are some notable exceptions.

Ella takes daily immuno suppressant drugs and antibiotics.

She will always have to take drugs and be careful about exposure to disease.

Because the late diagnosis meant her heart was irreparably damaged and needed replacing, Amy and partner TJ are considering legal action.

Amy explained the complex emotions involved in receiving a donated organ.

’You can’t begin to understand the thoughts that go through your mind.

’I knew a baby needed to lose its life to save my daughter.’

She hasn’t met the donor family but has written to them to say thank you and sent pictures through the organ donation service.

She said: ’I’ll always be so grateful to the family who made that decision to donate their own baby’s heart so mine could live.’