Elizabeth Ward: pioneer of organ donor cards

Elizabeth Ward, the pioneer of organ donor cards, was a great fighter and a great charmer. This unlikely combination and her uncompromising resolve to save her son made her one of the most prominent healthcare crusaders in the last part of the 20th century.

Her son Timbo’s kidneys failed in 1970 when he was 12. Ward refused to accept his probable death and he went on to have three kidney transplantations, the last donated by his father, Nigel. His mother’s campaigning helped to buy him an unlikely 22 years of life. He died in 1987 aged 34.

Kidney transplantation was still in its infancy when he first became ill. The first UK operation was carried out in Edinburgh in 1960. In the 1970s and 1980s the procedure—to a far greater degree than today—was restricted to the lucky few.

The odds were further stacked against Elizabeth Ward’s campaign because of her sex and because doctors recoiled from lay people interfering in their world. But Ward’s entrance on to the public stage could not have been better timed.