Team Northern Ireland are Dresden-bound for the World Transplant Games 2025

Ends Notes to editors: The 25th World Transplant Games will be held in Dresden, Germany from 17-24 August 2025, and the Public Health Agency is wishing Team NI the very best of luck at the Games. Running for almost 50 years and often referred to as a ‘celebration of life’, the Games exist to promote organ donation and encourage more people across the world to register and support donation; and to help recipients improve their health and fitness around their transplanted organ. The Games are also an opportunity to show appreciation for, and remember, organ donors and their families, and have grown to become the world’s largest awareness event for the gift of life and a beacon for transplant recipients, their families and supporters, and living donors. The seven-day programme of 17 high exertion and low impact sports, along with many social and cultural events, caters to both elite and social athletes. The Games attract 2,500 participants and Team NI will be joining athletes from up to 60 other nations. A team of 27 athletes from Northern Ireland are attending: 22 transplanted patients, along with 5 living kidney donors, 3 of whom donated to a stranger. The patients who have had their life transformed through donation and transplantation come from all across NI and are taking part in a wide range of sports including swimming, triathlon, archery, table tennis, ten-pin bowling, golf, cycling and track and field. Public Health Agency Organ Donation Promotion Manager Catherine McKeown passed on the good luck message saying: “We wish all the athletes every success at the World Transplant Games in Dresden and hope they enjoy an unforgettable experience. They have committed to a rigourous traning schedule and some of the team saw this translate into medal success at the British Transplant Games earlier this month. The Games help to demonstrate the benefits of transplantation whilst increasing public awareness of the need for more people to join the NHS Organ Donation Register and discuss their organ donation decision with their families. These inspirational athletes, both transplant recipients and living donors, are a testament to the gift of life given through organ donation.” The team is coordinated by Transplant Sport Northern Ireland (TSNI), a charity which encourages and facilitates sporting and recreational activities to help rehabilitate transplant patients. TSNI sees the benefits that attendance at the Games has on new transplantees. In many cases sport has become a regular part of their transplant rehabilitation with members joining local sports clubs, setting new sporting challenges. This has a lasting impact on patients overall health, well-being and in many cases maintaining stable graft function. Organ and tissue donation and transplantation saves and transforms hundreds of lives each year. However, only 1% of people will die in circumstances where donation is possible, generally in hospital on a ventilator, which illustrates the shortage of organs and why every donation is precious. Sadly, each year in Northern Ireland around 10-15 people die awaiting a transplant. Support for organ donation in NI remains high at 90%, and 59% of people have recorded their decision on the NHS Organ Donor Register, one of the highest in the UK. Last year in Northern Ireland, 44 amazing families supported the gift of organ donation, which enabled 123 life-saving transplants across the UK. Organ donation is a most precious gift, and the selfless act of donors and their families is at the hear