First transplant patient visits improving Phillip

Press, 28 December 1987, Page 1

First transplant patient visits improving Phillip

By SUE LANCASTER Doctors at Green Lane Hospital hope the heart transplant patient, Phillip Robinson, will be able to sit in a chair today. “He is progressing well but it is still early days after the surgery,” said a member of the heart transplant team, Dr Arthur Coverdale. Phillip, aged 13, received the . Christmas present 'he desperately wanted on Christmas Day by becoming the second person to have a heart transplant in New Zealand. New Zealand’s first heart transplant patient, Mr Brian Lindsay, visited the Christchurch teenager on Boxing Day and twice yesterday.

“Phillip reckoned his scar was better than mine — if he’s getting cheeky he must be coming right,” said Mr Lindsay. “He smiled and is looking really strong. We talked about taking walks when he was fitter. It won’t be long before we’re out in the park chasing each other around.” Dr Coverdale said it had been

helpful for Phillip’s mother, Mrs Trish Robinson, to have the support of Mr Lindsay and his wife. Mrs Robinson, who had been waiting in Auckland with Phillip for the donor heart for more than five weeks, told “The Press” that she had not had a good night’s sleep since Phillip became sick. Her greatest wish after the surgery was “to go to bed and to sleep.”

Six months ago Phillip had been a normal teen-age boy. His heart problems were caused by a virus which left his heart muscles seriously weakened.

Dr Coverdale said that Phillip stood -up several times yesterday and ate some sandwiches his mother had made. He was given chicken and ice-cream for lunch but did not eat much. However, it was not uncommon for heart transplant patients to have poor appetites to begin with, said Dr Coverdale. Phillip had tolerated the drugs well that he had been given to prevent him rejecting the new heart, said Dr Coverdale.