21/09/2026
Every year we mark Organ Donation Week. This year it means something closer to home. One of our own team, Joanne Caswell, Emergency Care Assistant, has lived it — and has spent fifteen years since campaigning so that other families have the conversation before they need it. This is her story, in her words.
In September 2006 my husband Karl was diagnosed with an AVM on the brain — a rare tangle of blood vessels where the arteries connect straight to the veins — the size of an orange.
He had six embolisation’s to slow its growth. That bought us time. Time to make memories, time to plan, time as a family to say the things most people never get the chance to say.
Karl drew his last breath on Sunday 28 February 2010.
Because we'd had that time, we had already talked about what would happen. Karl was a soldier for 30 years. His whole working life was about saving life, and his final wish was to be an organ donor.
At 8am on Monday 1 March I walked with him to theatre at Arrowe Park Hospital, where the retrieval team were waiting. Karl died on a ventilator, of brain death, which meant he could be a multi-organ donor. The process was easy. And it was personal — not robotic.
Karl donated two kidneys, his liver, two heart valves, heart tissue, his pancreas, lungs, eyes, tendons and skin. More than twelve people got the medical help they needed. The two heart valves went to babies.
Since then I've campaigned for donation and been part of the Transplant Games. I've worked alongside Arrowe Park, talking to staff about donation and supporting families going through what we went through. We've guided people to the donor register, and we've raised funds for a memorial to everyone who has died and donated at that hospital.
On Friday 18 September, that memorial goes up. A bronze oak tree, sculpted by Wirral's own Emma Rodgers, outside the new hospital development. Each branch will carry the name of a donor, where their family has given permission. Over the years the tree will grow and hold more names.
An oak is a symbol of strength, of life, of new beginnings. One person's loss is another's gain.
The official unveiling is at 11am on Monday 21 September — the first day of Organ Donation Week.
As clinicians, we see both sides of this: the families who know, and the families who are asked at the worst moment of their lives and simply don't know what their person would have wanted.
So please — join the NHS Organ Donor Register or confirm the decision you've already made. Then tell your family. The law in England now assumes you agree unless you've recorded otherwise, but your family will still be asked. If there is any doubt, the process stops.
Two minutes now. A conversation at the kitchen table. That's all it takes.
Joanne — thank you for letting us share Karl's story.
