Canadian Baby Kaylee Transplant: Hope Turns To Heartbreak

Yesterday we brought you the story of baby Kaylee Wallace, a two-month-old baby born with severe kidney problems and Joubert syndrome, a rare brain condition that means she needed a respirator to breathe when she slept. Her heart-broken parents, Jason Wallace and Crystal Vitelli, from Ontario, Canada, knew she would die soon, but found solace in the idea of having Kaylee’s heart live on in another child. They were told about a baby in the same Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, who needed a heart transplant. The couple met the baby’s parents and the life-saving operation was about to go ahead.

The parents of a terminally ill baby who wanted to save another child are distraught after they switched their daughter’s life support off and she stayed alive. When she carried on breathing, and the surgery had to be called off. This is because legally the heart needs to stop beating for five minutes before a transplant can take place.

However, doctors said there is still a chance her heart could be donated to another child before she dies.

“This was not our wish and we’re very upset about this,” said Mr Wallace as he described their emotional ordeal. “It’s because we’re trying to save a child, you know, our daughter’s still here we love her, yes. But people must understand this is not completely about Kaylee – it’s about another child to be saved. I tried so hard to just tell her calmly: ‘Go to sleep honey, its time to go see the angels.’ I will continue to fight this – if she’s going to die, we still have to try. The heart’s there.”

Dr James Wright, the hospital’s surgeon-in-chief, said: “This is a highly complicated situation fraught with personal, moral and ethical issues.”

The hospital had not ruled out another attempt at surgery.

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