Family’s grief as alcoholic son dies after being denied a transplant

Gary Reinbach, 22, was given just weeks to live after developing one of the worst cases of cirrhosis his doctors had seen.

He was admitted to hospital with alcohol damage for the first time ten weeks ago and was too unwell to be sent home.

But health chiefs ruled he should not be exempt from strict transplant criteria that require a "dry" spell of at least six months before organs are donated.

Today his family in Dagenham, east London, attacked the decision as they revealed his slide into alcoholism started at age 11, when his parents split up.

The break-up triggered years of heavy drinking that began at school and ended with his death at 5pm yesterday in a critical care unit at University College Hospital.

His mother, Madeline Hanshaw, 44, said: "He was in a wheelchair for the past two months, he couldn't eat, he couldn't talk. How could he have discharged himself to show that could stay off the drink?

"These rules are really unfair. I'm not saying you should give a transplant to someone who is in and out of hospital all the time and keeps damaging themselves, but just for people like Gary, who made a mistake and never got a second chance.

"It never occurred to him what would happen. He was just a sweet, normal boy with a heart of gold, who never hurt anyone. And now he's gone. He was scared. He was 22 but still a kid. He thought when he went to hospital they would just give him some tablets and he'd be ok. He was desperate to recover and did everything the doctors asked of him, but he went downhill so fast."

Gary lived with his brothers, Luke, 18, Tyler, 16, and his kitchen assistant mother on a housing estate. His father, also called Gary, moved away and now rarely sees his sons.

He used to play golf and football, and was an avid supporter of Liverpool FC, but he had little energy for hobbies in the last few years of his life and spent most of his time drinking beer, whisky and vodka with friends.

His family claimed he had recently being trying to quit and signed up for Alcoholics Anonymous weeks before being admitted to Queen's Hospital.

Had Gary received a liver transplant, doctors predicted he had a 75 per cent chance of survival.

His brother Luke said: "It is completely unjust, a complete joke. Gary was only a child when he started drinking and he had no idea what he was doing. He wasn't a bad person, he just made a mistake. But they never gave him the chance to show he could change.

"It all started when my parents split up when he was 11. We moved to Dagenham from East Ham and he got in with a different crowd. Then, a couple of years later, he started drinking.

"When he didn't have a drink, he was lovely. He never said anything bad about anyone. He just got into the cycle of drinking and he couldn't get out. It has been terrible knowing he could have been saved and he wasn't."

The death will re-ignite the debate about organ transplant and the rules surrounding them.

Four years ago former footballer George Best drank himself to death aged 59 after he returned to alcohol only a year after being given a donor organ in 2002.

There are about 330 people of the liver transplant waiting list and about 100 die each year without ever finding a suitable donor.

Sarah Matthews, campaigns manager for the British Liver Trust, said doctors may have made attempts to find an emergency donor when his condition deteriorated.

Ms Matthews said: "It is a very difficult situation, one that we are sorry to hear someone found themselves in.

"There are strict criteria for transplants, particularly for people that have problems with alcohol. I don't know if they looked for transplant when he was in a critical state, they could have been looking for a suitable one when he died."

The hospital would not comment on the final hours of his life or the level of treatment given.

A spokeswoman for University College Hospital said: "Our sympathies are with his family at this time."