Britain’s organ donor crisis as 7,000 patients on longest waiting list in a decade

The Independent's Morning Headlines email [View online]( March 27, 2023 [Morning Headlines]( 1 / [‘Waiting to die’: Woman’s agonising transplant surgery delay as waiting list hits 10-year high]( A young woman receiving end-of-life care says she is “just waiting to die” as an agonising three-year wait for a kidney transplant has left her “living like a prisoner”. Diana Isajeva is one of approximately 7,000 patients who are on the waiting list, according to the NHS Blood and Transport service (NHSBT) – the highest figure in a decade. The 29-year-old was due to have a transplant last year but was denied it at the last minute, after the living donor she was matched with pulled out just 24 hours before her planned surgery. Data from NHSBT shows that the rate of families giving consent for their loved ones’ organs to be donated has dropped – despite a change in the law in 2020 aimed at boosting the number of organs available, which means that consent for donation is now presumed after death.   2 / [Thousands take to the streets in Israel after Netanyahu sacks defence minister]( Mass protests in Israel over controversial plans to overhaul the independent judiciary 3 / [Court backlogs for rape and sexual offences hit record high with ‘devastating’ waits for justice]( The stark figures coincide with the scathing Casey report into policing, which found officers had failed to protect women 4 / [Rishi Sunak warned giving in to Tory right on asylum bill will ‘erode trust’]( Up to 60 rebel Tory MPs said to want ban on Strasbourg court orders on deportation 5 / [Residents of tiny town hit by tornado reveal how TV meteorologist seen praying on-air saved them]( WTVA meteorologist Matt Laubhan was heard saying, ‘Dear Jesus, please help them’, as he urged local people to seek safety   The Big Question Should we be concerned by the rise in choking during sex? It’s impressive to me how many men have done it without checking,” 29-year-old Anna* tells me, when I ask her how she feels about [choking]( during [sex](. “I distinctly remember thinking ‘I wonder what I responded to that read as consent to that?’. Was it rough kissing? Something else?” The thing is, Anna* isn’t averse to choking, at least in theory. “There’s no doubt that power and sex are related,” she says. “We can all enjoy giving up power, taking it, feeling it”. But, she stresses, “it has to be our power. You have to be choosing to play with it.” In 2020, a [national probability survey]( of Americans aged 18 to 60 years found that 21 per cent of women reported having been choked during sex. Twenty per cent of men reported that they had choked a partner during sex. What was striking, however, was the difference across age groups. The survey reported adults aged 18 to 29 engaging in choking at much higher rates than older adults. This apparent generational shift in sexual attitudes has been backed up a number of times, with [another US survey]( finding that 58 per cent of female college students have been choked during sex, with a quarter having been choked by age 17. [For the full story click here >]( £99 £20 for 1 year ✓ Full access to Premium news analysis ✓ Advert-free reading across web and app ✓ The Independent Daily Edition newspaper ✓ Puzzles, virtual event tickets and more [SUBSCRIBE NOW](   Watch/ [Led By Donkeys fool Matt Hancock into revealing staggering £10,000 day rate](   NUMBER OF THE DAY 400 – Data for 2021-22 shows that just over 400 people died while waiting for an organ transplant, while more than 600 were taken off the list because they had become too ill for surgery. [Read more here](   QUOTE OF THE DAY “It is of course extremely disappointing to hear of this event, and while there will be a time later for anger and investigation, our focus now must be ensuring we can mitigate any impacts of this situation.” – Leader of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council, Philip Broadhead after a major incident has been declared after oil leaked into the water in Poole Harbour. 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