Young children needing liver transplants will be spared the disruption of a long stay in Australia from next year.

The New Zealand Liver Transplant Unit at Auckland Hospital has won approval to extend its service to children under 7.

About six young children a year now go to Brisbane for liver transplants, at a cost of about $180,000 each to the Ministry of Health. They can be away from home for more than a year waiting for a suitable liver and recovering.

"This announcement will be a huge relief for families who were previously faced with having to give up homes and jobs to travel to Australia for treatment for such a lengthy period," Sue Curlett, of the Children's Transplant Support Trust, said yesterday.

A Te Puke mother of two, Kim Jones, said her son Campbell, now 4, was totally healthy before his liver started failing last year for no known reason.

"Within a week he was rushed to [Royal Children's Hospital in] Brisbane. He went downhill so fast. He was put on top of the list theminute they found out his liver was failing.

"He was given seven days when he got there and he got his liver on the fifth day ...

"When they opened him up and had a look they said he wouldn't have had more than 12 hours."

Mrs Jones said Campbell was allowed home after three months, the minimum post-operative stay, and was doing well.

But the trip had interrupted the family's whole life. "Peter is an auditor at [meat company] Affco. They kept his job open, so we were lucky."

The ministry will pay the cost of about $180,000 for the Auckland Hospital transplants, including travel and accommodation. Ronald McDonald House - which yesterday said it was putting in $212,000 - Rotary, and the Starship Foundation have made a commitment to raise nearly $400,000 for equipment and staff training.

The director of the transplant unit, Professor Stephen Munn, said transplants for young children mostly involved splitting a single liver, with a small part going to the child and the rest to an adult.

Most of the children needed liver transplants because of biliary atresia, a rare condition in which they are born without enough ducts to drain bile.

They become jaundiced, then develop cirrhosis and, at a young age, end-stage liver disease. The condition is more common among Maori and Pacific Island children, but it is not known why.

Professor Munn said the youngest patient he had worked on, overseas, was eight days old.

The Auckland unit has performed 87 liver transplants on 85 patients (two had repeat operations) since it opened in February 1998.

Two patients have died, but Professor Munn said the survival rate compared favourably with overseas.

The unit is now awaiting ethics committee approval to start performing transplants using pieces of liver from live donors.

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