Pioneering OE surgeon keen to help children who lose a limb
A FORMER Guernsey resident who performed the Britain’s first hand transplant 10 years ago has said he would like to next help children who have lost limbs to sepsis and meningitis.
Following an accident to his hand as a child, which inspired his surgery career, former Elizabeth College pupil Professor Simon Kay, who lived in Guernsey between the ages of one to 18, performed the eight-hour hand transplant on Boxing Day 2012.
A decade on, he has announced his next pioneering surgery venture.
Professor Kay’s transplant surgery also made history as the world’s first transplant where the original hand was removed during the same procedure, as previous recipients had already lost the hand before the replacement.
‘We know hand transplantation, if conducted properly in a responsible environment, is predictable, reliable and successful,’ he said.
‘One group I want to look at very closely now is child limb loss, because there’s a large number of children out there who lose their limbs from sepsis who would greatly benefit from hand transplantation.’
He said that from a procedure perspective, it was no more difficult, but complexities needed to be considered such as consent, ethics and risks.
Professor Kay’s pioneering surgery on patient Mark Cahill made Leeds General Infirmary one of the two leading centres in the world and remains the only one in the UK to offer the procedure.
‘It will never be a mass transplantation, like renal transplants or like liver transplants, because there are very few people who lose their hands, thankfully,’ he said.
‘It’s very hard to ask for a kidney donation, but it’s especially hard to ask for what is essentially a disfiguring donation and a very identifiable, very personal, part of the body.
‘Many patients say that after surgery it is the small things that are the most significant to them, such as being able to brush their daughter’s hair, take money out of a purse, or turn on the tap and fill a glass of water, and to feel complete again.’
Professor Kay, who was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List in 2019, damaged the little finger of his left hand in an accident aged five. He decided later to have it amputated, and learned to use his weaker right hand more.
He said he was torn after university over whether to return to Guernsey or move to Leeds, to develop his surgery career.
He said that while the island was a fantastic place to grow up, he believed that there would not be the opportunities locally to do the sort of surgery in which he was interested.
