LONDON, April 12 (UPI) -- A mother in England says she was denied her daughter's kidney because her daughter failed to register as a donor before dying of an asthma attack.
Before she died, Laura Ashworth, 21, had said she intended to donate one of her kidneys to her mother, Rachel Leake, 39, but because she had not begun the formal process of becoming a "living donor," authorities refused to let her mother receive her organs,The Daily Mail reported Saturday.
Instead, they went to strangers at the top of the transplant waiting list.
"She would have been so upset that she was not able to help her mum," Leake said. "Even the transplant coordinator was crying her eyes out. She really tried to get her bosses to change their minds but they would not budge."
The newspaper said Leake urgently needs another kidney and as a diabetic she could also have benefited from her daughter's pancreas.
Adrian McNeil, chief executive of the Human Tissue Authority, said all requests for so-called "directed" organ donations were being denied while an ethical review was taking place.
