DOCTORS have been accused of sentencing a seriously ill Killorglin man to death after removing his name from a waiting list for a lung transplant.

Time is rapidly running out for cystic fibrosis sufferer Billy Burke (29) who has just months to live if he doesn’t get the new lung he so desperately craves. But his distraught family say he has effectively been condemned to death after being scratched off a transplant list at a hospital in the UK and refused an organ for the operation that would save his life.

Billy’s sister Lisa said a hospital in Newcastle, which receives all Irish organs donated for transplant, has refused to release a lung to enable her brother’s transplant to proceed. Under an agreement with health authorities in Ireland, Freeman Hospital in Newcastle has exclusive access to all organs donated in Ireland but the hospital authorities have the ultimate say on what patients are to receive transplants – and Billy is not in the reckoning.

“Billy has been reduced to a medical political football and bureaucratic red tape is robbing my brother of a crucial opportunity in his fight for life,” Lisa told The Kingdom.

“We are not looking to jump queues or anything – all we are looking for is a fair chance. But Billy is not even being given a chance of an organ and it’s a huge injustice,” she added.

Calling on politicians to intervene to save her beloved brother’s life, Lisa remarked: “Billy so wants to live. He loves life so much and the hopes of a transplant is the only thing that’s keeping him alive”.

She said she fears her brother has “a maximum of a few months” to live if he doesn’t receive a transplant as a matter of urgency.

Time is rapidly running out for 29-year-old Billy Burke who suffers from Cystic Fibrosis and has been on the waiting list for a lung transplant for three and a half years.

But the Burke family were devastated when he was taken off the list by doctors in Newcastle in February 2003 after developing an infection in his lungs –a condition not uncommon in people with suffering with CF.“

The doctors in Dublin believed he shouldn’t have been taken off the list. They still believe he is a good candidate for a transplant,” Lisa told The Kingdom. “They advised us to get a second opinion with consultants in Manchester,” she added.

According to Lisa, a group of consultants examined Billy “with a fine tooth comb” and reached the opinion that he remained a suitable candidate and would prosper if he received a new lung. Consultants at the Machester hospital told the Burke family that they would be happy to carry out the procedure but it would require an organ to be released from Freeman Hospital in Newcastle.

Under an agreement with the Irish government the Newcastle hospital carries out all Irish lung transplants and, in return, the hospital is entitled to exclusive use of all organs donated in Ireland. The agreement gives the UK hospital the ultimate say on who receives a transplant and, so far, the hospital authorities have refused to release an organ to allow Billy to undergo a life-saving transplant. “We can understand why Manchester are insisting on having an Irish organ to carry out the transplant as that they have a list of their own critical patients to take care of,” Lisa remarked.

“We initially thought that it wouldn’t be difficult to get an Irish lung diverted but obviously it wasn’t as simple as we first envisaged,” she added. “We are not looking to jump queues or anything –all we are looking for is a fair chance,” Lisa explained.

“But Billy is not even being given a chance of an organ and it’s a huge injustice,” she added. Lisa met with Health Minister Micheál Martin and he pledged his support to cut through the bureaucratic red tape to help save her brother’s life. “Micheal Martin said he would help us but we have not seen the results of these promises – the situation remains the same,” Lisa claimed.

“As far as the politicians are concerned they can’t be seen to interfere with medical matters and the medical people can’t change the contract with Newcastle. We are caught in the middle like a medical, political football,” she added. “I personally believe that the government can do something. Micheál Martin is capable of being quite radical as the smoking ban showed so surely he can tell them in Newcastle to release the organ to allow us to save Billy’s life,” the Killorglin woman stressed.

“They need to let common sense prevail,” she added. In the meantime, Billy is almost entirely confined his apartment which is located next to the family home in Killorglin. He has been prescribed dozens of tablets every day and endures eight hours of intravenous drugs and 24 hours of oxygen daily. “Billy wants to live. The doctors thought he would be dead long ago but he has a strong will. He loves life so much and I really believe that’s what is keeping him alive,” Lisa said.

“A lung transplant would transform his life but he’s not getting the chance he deserves – it’s very wrong,” she added. According to Lisa, the Burke family decided to go public in the hope that a wave of publicity would get the ball rolling on the release of the organ from Newcastle to Manchester.

Billy and his family have the full support of the Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland who have called on the Minister for Health to ensure that Irish organs are available to Irish patients regardless of where the procedure is carried out. In the meantime, Billy sits at home, an emergency bleep by his side, waiting for the call to say a lung has been released and he can have the transplant that could save his life.

But time is running out fast, his sister has warned. “We are appealing to the politicians to help Billy. Our lives have just been hell,” said Lisa. “Time is not on Billy’s side and if he doesn’t receive a transplant the most he has got in a maximum of three months.

“At the moment it’s like the hospital in Newcastle has condemned my brother to death,” she said. Ironically, the Burke family’s plea was made on the same day that their local TD, John O’Donoghue added his signature to a pledge to support a campaign encouraging more organ donations for transplant purposes.