Newcastle mother appeals on Twitter for new kidney

A mother has issued an urgent appeal on Twitter for a life-saving kidney.

Joanne D'Onofrio, 46, from Newcastle, is currently on dialysis in the city's Freeman Hospital after falling seriously ill.

At 18 she suffered kidney failure and had her first transplant a year later in 1991, but her body is now attacking the donor kidney.

Almost 27,000 people have re-tweeted her appeal. She told BBC Newcastle she was "overwhelmed" by the response.

She said: "Even if I cant find a kidney, people could find them for other people.

"There could be a lot more people get transplants just because of that one tweet."

Ms D'Onofrio, whose two children are in their early 20s, said she was "really awkward" as she needed a living donor with O positive blood and matching tissue types.

She said a "cadaver kidney" would not work due to her high antibody count which would reject such an organ.

She underwent surgery on Thursday morning to have a new dialysis line fitted to her lumbar vein, but if that fails "that would be it".

In her tweet, she said: "I'm in desperate need of a kidney transplant and need a matching live donor.

"I'm actually at the end of the road now, so need one pretty quickly to save my life."

There were 940 adult living-donor kidney transplants in the UK in 2017/18, according to NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT).

Of those, 85 were altruistic - meaning kidneys were donated voluntarily to a stranger.

A spokeswoman said: "For suitable patients, transplantation is normally the best treatment for end-stage kidney disease compared with dialysis.

"A transplant from a living kidney donor is often the best chance of a successful transplant."

Living kidney transplants have been performed in the UK since 1960 and there are currently 6,119 people on the transplant waiting list, including 4,828 people waiting for a kidney.