Team Northern Ireland are Dresden-bound for the World Transplant Games 2025

Running for almost 50 years and often referred to as a ‘celebration of life’, the Games exist to promote organ donation and encourage more people across the world to register and support donation; and to help recipients improve their health and fitness around their transplanted organ.  The Games are also an opportunity to show appreciation for, and remember, organ donors and their families, and have grown to become the world’s largest awareness event for the gift of life and a beacon for transplant recipients, their families and supporters, and living donors.

The seven-day programme of 17 high exertion and low impact sports, along with many social and cultural events, caters to both elite and social athletes.  The Games attract 2,200 participants and supporters including 83 living donors. Team NI will be joining athletes from up to 50 other nations.

This year a team of 27 athletes from Northern Ireland are attending the Games:  22 transplanted patients, along with 5 living kidney donors, 3 of whom donated to a stranger.  The patients who have had their life transformed through donation and transplantation come from all across NI and are taking part in a wide range of sports including swimming, triathlon, archery, table tennis, ten-pin bowling, golf, cycling and track and field. 

Team Manager and track and field athlete Orla Smyth says:

‘I am honoured to be the Team Manager for the first ever stand alone Northern Ireland team competing in the World Transplant Games in Dresden this August. Our athletes have all been putting in the hard work over the last year to be as prepared as they can to compete in there chosen sport on a global stage. Their ability to do so is down to the courage and generosity of organ donors and their families. This event allows us to show case the life changing benefits of organ donation and the opportunity to thank organ donors on a global stage. We hope that the visibility of our transplanted athletes encourages people to talk to their loved ones about organ donation and the legacy that can be left from the decision to register as an organ donor’.

The team is coordinated by Transplant Sport Northern Ireland (TSNI), a charity which encourages and facilitates sporting and recreational activities to help rehabilitate transplant patients.  TSNI sees the benefits that attendance at the Games has on new transplantees.  In many cases sport has become a regular part of their transplant rehabilitation with members joining local sports clubs, setting new sporting challenges. This has a lasting impact on patients overall health, well-being and in many cases maintaining stable graft function.

The Games also help to demonstrate the benefits of transplantation whilst increasing public awareness of the need for more people to join the NHS Organ Donation Register and discuss their organ donation decision with their families.

Organ and tissue donation and transplantation saves and transforms hundreds of lives each year. However, only 1% of people will die in circumstances where donation is possible, generally in hospital on a ventilator, which illustrates the shortage of organs and why every donation is precious.  Sadly, each year in Northern Ireland around 10-15 people die awaiting a transplant.

Support for organ donation in NI remains high at 90%, and 58% of people have recorded their decision on the NHS Organ Donor Register, the highest in the UK.

Last year in Northern Ireland, 44 amazing families supported the gift of organ donation, which enabled 123 life-saving transplants across the UK.  Organ donation is a most precious gift, and the selfless act of donors and their families is at the heart of organ donation. 

It is extremely important to share your organ donation decision with those close to you.  Should the worst happen, families find the organ donation conversation much easier if they already know what their relative would have wanted. Only 50% of families agree to organ donation going ahead if they don’t know their loved ones’ decision, but this rises to 90% if the family has had a conversation. 

Even though the law around organ donation changed in June 2023, you can continue record an opt-in decision on the NHS Organ Donor Register and by doing so, you can proactively show your support for organ donation, giving loved ones the confidence and comfort to support your decision.