A family has handed over a cheque for £25,000 to Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham in memory of an island liver transplant patient.

Ann Fox sadly died in 2014 just days after a fund-raising ball at the Empress Hotel in Douglas that she and her husband Tony helped organise in aid of the QEHB’s Liver Transplant Unit.

Three years on, her family has raised more than £70,000 and at this year’s autumn ball presented their latest cheque for £25,000 to the unit’s charity appeal.

Ann, of Union Mills, was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis 20 years ago.

The progressive disease slowly worsened, eventually leaving her in desperate need of a new liver.

She underwent a liver transplant at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in April 2014.

But sadly, Ann was at the hospital again at the time of the ball in November, and tragically died just a few days after.

A life-saving machine in the liver department at Queen Elizabeth Hospital is to be named the Fox machine in Ann’s memory.

At this year’s Autumn Ball the latest fund-raising cheque was presented to charity representative and transplant surgeon Thamara Perera.

Two transplant recipients, one of which has had two liver transplants, were at the ball.

Ann’s daughter Andrea Gilmore said: ’We have been fund-raising now for four years in an effort to assist the unit in purchasing a normothermic perfusion machine that will prolong the life of liver, kidney, and pancreas from retrieval to transplant.

’This machine could travel into the Isle of Man to retrieve gifted organs for the benefit of those dying to live.’

Andrea said to date the family has raised in excess of £70,000, thanks to the generosity of the island.

She said: ’We are only a small fund-raising group with no corporate affiliation, and so very proud of what the Isle of Man has helped us to achieve so far.

’It has been incredible to have come into contact with so many other residents whose story resonates with our own.’