Fewer than a dozen organs from people who have died in Lincolnshire are saved for transplant each year, it has been revealed.

In fact donor organs are retrieved from just 20 bodies in the East Midlands each year.

Peter

Sas of NHS UK Transplant said donor organs have to be taken from people

who have died in hospital so that their body parts have remained

oxygenated.

"The East Midlands rate is below the average for the rest of the UK," he said.

"Most donors are patients who have died from head injuries or a brain haemorrhage.

"There

is no neuro centre in the East Midlands except for Nottingham so that

might account for fewer organs being retrieved in the East Midlands."

While

an average of 26 per cent of people nationally are on the UK Organ

Donation Register, just 20 per cent – 146,420 – of Lincolnshire people

are.

Eight organs including, heart, lungs, pancreas and kidneys, can be used from a donor body as well as around 20 sorts of tissue.

Donor

organs need to be transplanted within 24 hours of retrieval while

tissues, including corneas, skin, bone and heart valves can be stored

in tissue banks, of which there are several around the country.