THE heartbreaking story of Patricia Carroll in this week’s Gazette serves as a timely reminder about how we can all make a difference once we’re gone from this world.

Patricia’s daughter Natalie waited, and waited, for a kidney donor to come forward, and when they finally did it was too late.

Sadly, she  was too weak to go under the knife and wouldn’t have survived the nine hours of life-saving surgery she faced.

Natalie passed away, but her mum Patricia is keen for her life not to have been in vain.

She spoke with us this week about her family’s trauma in the hope it will encourage others to sign up to be donors.

She also wants politicians to look at the law again. Is it right for relatives to be able to reverse a donor’s decision to give up an organ after they have gone? She wants this, and other issues around donation laws, to be looked at again.

I recently joined the donor register myself. 

It made logical sense to me that someone should make the most of my liver or kidneys when I no longer need them.

Whether you decide to sign up or not, it’s surely right, we all consider the pros and cons around what is clearly a matter of life or death.