Meet some of our patients

Jack

Jack was born with an extremely rare lung disease, primary pulmonary hypertension, which affects only two babies in a million.

It puts extra strain on the heart and damages the lungs. His only hope for survival was a lung transplant, and Jack was referred to GOSH, one of the world's leading centres for this operation.

Initially, he was fitted with a backpack containing drugs pumped directly into his heart every three minutes, to buy him time until he was old enough for the double lung transplant.

Finally, when Jack was five, the family got the call from GOSH to say they were ready to operate and they raced by ambulance to London. The operation took eight hours, but he was rushed back into theatre three hours later with massive internal bleeding. After a week on a ventilator, his kidneys failed and his stomach stopped working. But three months later, Jack was well enough to return home.

Jack is now a tough, lively six-year-old who enjoys football, school and life.

Meet other patients here.