• Bolton NHS health worker wins gold at Europeans games on anniversary of heart transplant
• Rob Hodgkiss received surgery 28 years ago and now works as a Practice Education Facilitator
• He’s now an advocate for promoting organ donation and its ability to save and transform lives

A health worker at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust has celebrated the anniversary of his life-saving heart transplant by winning two gold medals at the European Transplant Sports Championships.

On July 27, exactly 28 years after undergoing the surgery, Rob Hodgkiss secured gold in discus and 200m track, which added to the four silver medals he achieved earlier in the week in the swimming pool and volleyball.

The British team also topped the medal table and won trophies for the best Heart and Lung Transplant Team and best Overall Team at the 2024 edition of the games held in Lisbon, Portugal.

Rob said:

It’s always amazing to take part in transplant sports events, knowing that everyone there is only alive due to the selfless gift of a donated organ.

“It was especially poignant to win the gold medals on the anniversary of my transplant and to look back at my life over the last 28 years, knowing none of it would have happened without my transplant.

Rob underwent a heart transplant aged 30 at the Freeman Hospital Newcastle Upon Tyne, while he was working as a dentist in Newcastle. He suffered a rapid illness due to cardiomyopathy and it was only 8 weeks from being admitted to hospital with shortness of breath to being discharged following a lifesaving heart transplant.

Unfortunately, hand tremors that are a side effect of his lifelong immunosuppressant medication prevented the return to a career in dentistry, so Rob returned to university to study Physiotherapy.

Qualifying in 2003 from University of Salford, Rob has enjoyed a 21-year career working for Bolton NHS Foundation Trust and now works as an Allied Health Professional (AHP) Practice Education Facilitator, supporting Allied Health Professions students on placement at the trust.

A former keen athlete, Rob has used his transplant as an opportunity to return to competitive sport and has competed at British, European and world transplant sports events, winning more than 100 medals and trophies over the past 28 years in athletics, swimming and volleyball events.

The championships were Rob’s first competition since the COVID-19 pandemic, with several events having been cancelled due to the high risk of COVID-19 for transplant recipients.

Rob said:

I’m really passionate about promoting organ donation, having seen one of the three people on the cardiac ward in Newcastle with me on the transplant waiting list die without the chance of a transplant.

“There are currently more than 7,500 people in the UK waiting for a lifesaving transplant and too many still die without getting the chance of a transplant.

While recent law changes mean there is an opt out system for organ donation, people still need to share their wishes with their families, as the family can still decline the option of an organ donation if they don’t know the person’s wishes.

Rob added:

People often say how unlucky I was to need a transplant aged only 30, but I feel incredibly lucky to have had the chance of the gift of life from a transplant and the 28 years with my family that wouldn’t have been possible without the selfless gift of donation.

Rob lives with his wife Julie and has a daughter Bethany, who had her first birthday just two weeks after his transplant, and son Adam who was born two years after the transplant.

The European Transplant Sports Championships saw more than 500 athletes from 25 countries across Europe take part in a joint event between the European Heart and Lung Transplant Federation and the European Transplant and Dialysis Sports Federation.

The Championships are an opportunity to demonstrate the incredible lifesaving impact of organ donation and transplantation, emphasising the importance of sharing our organ donation wishes with our families.

More information about organ donation can be found on the NHS Organ Donation website.