Within five hours, her heart had been given to DeVos by Britain's leading transplant surgeon Sir Magdi Yacoub who has carried out hundreds of NHS operations. There are almost 700 people in Britain waiting for a new heart, but a Government agency insisted the organ given to DeVos wasn't suitable for any of them. The decision rests with the clinicians who remove the organ. They are able to decide whether it is suitable for donation. In this case the organ was not suitable for donation to a patient within the NHS waiting list or in the EU with whom we share organs suitable for transplant.
Organs go off.
You only have a window of four or five hours before it is useless. The donated heart was unsuitable for other people because of its size and blood group. It appears as though an American billionaire has been able to receive a transplant via the back door. What troubles me is that we just do not know what is going on behind the scenes. We know that hospitals throughout the country receive payment for carrying out transplants for patients from Europe.