Photo by Nino Liverani on Unsplash

In August last year a nine-year-old boy named Max Johnson had a heart transplant. The soccer-loving youngster from Cheshire in Britain had been waiting eight desperate months for a suitable donor organ to become available. He told reporters at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle that he couldn’t thank the donor family enough. “You’ve saved my life,” he said.

In the weeks that followed Max and his family got behind a campaign to change the way organ donations work in Britain. At present, organs can only be donated if explicit approval is given, either by signing a register or if the deceased person told their family they wanted to become an organ donor.

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