HELPING others feel better is all in a day’s work for Roger Sutton, but now he’s gone one step further and saved a child’s life.

The 53-year-old, a GP in Leigh Park, anonymously donated his kidney to 12-year-old Tom Higgs from Ruislip, in Greater London.

Tom was living with a rare kidney disease called atypical haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), which meant that he faced dialysis every night for five years.

A new kidney from a family member was not possible and Tom knew that a kidney from an altruistic living donor, like Roger, was his best option. And Roger’s selfless gift has completely transformed his life.

Roger, a churchwarden at St Jude’s Church in Southsea, said the donation was his way of saying thank you to God for all of the “great things” that have happened in his life.

“My wife Debbie and I have been married for more than 25 years, we have three children and two grandchildren. We have been very blessed so this was a chance to offer something back to God,” Roger said.

“It is difficult to explain and I don’t want to sound too pious but it was important for me to be able to say ‘thank you’ in this way.”

Roger was born and brought up in Beccles, a market town in Suffolk. He was the third of five children. His father was the parish priest, so Roger had no excuse not to attend church every Sunday!

He went to Sunday school and became familiar with the Bible stories. At the age of seven he joined the church choir. But it wasn’t until he went to a Christian youth camp in North Wales at the age of 11 that he made a personal decision to follow Jesus.

“I had grown up with church but sooner or later you have to decide ‘Is this for me?’. At that point I decided that I wanted to follow Jesus and my faith journey really began there.”

When he was 18, he moved to the south coast to study medicine at Southampton University. In his fourth year, he came to Portsmouth on placement and started attending St Jude’s where he met his wife, Debbie. They married in 1983, the same year he qualified as a medical doctor.

For several years Roger practiced at QA Hospital in Portsmouth before deciding on a career in general practice. He has been working at Staunton Surgery in Havant Health Centre since 1990. For Roger his job is a practical outworking of his faith.

“If you look at the Gospels, Jesus did an awful lot of healing as part of his ministry and for me helping to care for and heal others who are hurting is an expression of my faith,” Roger said.

“We are not a Christian practice so we don’t openly pray with patients, but sometimes I pray for guidance or wisdom or ask for help in handling a particularly difficult bereavement situation. I try to bring the presence of Jesus into all areas of what I do.”

Every five to seven years, Roger takes a sabbatical from his day job to refuel his mind, body and spirit. Over the years, he has used the four to six weeks off work to engage in sporting challenges such as cycling 1,575 miles from Land’s End to John O’Groats.

But in 2011 he decided he wanted to use the time to do something that was less “me-centred” and “a bit more useful”. And that was when he arrived at the decision to donate his kidney.

“I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when the idea to donate a kidney first came to me,” he said. “I suppose what started out as a thought grew into a quiet conviction that it was the right thing to do – a chance to say thank you to God for all the great things that have happened in my life.

“Looking back, I can see there’s been a bit of a ‘renal thread’ running through my life. My grandmother lived for 35 years after having one of her kidneys removed. I watched a kidney transplant operation when I was a medical student. 20 years ago a friend of mine had a transplant after developing renal failure.

“My wife Debbie, who is a dietician, was for many years part of a renal dietetics team. As a GP, I have seen just how important organ donation is and how lives have been transformed through transplants.”

Roger underwent a rigorous assessment before the operation at QA Hospital, both mentally and physically. He was also tested to ensure his remaining kidney would function well.

As the date of the operation drew nearer Roger found himself growing more and more excited and never once felt scared or anxious.

“I very definitely had a deep sense of peace about the whole process,” he said. “I had complete faith in the doctors and surgeons at QA. They were absolutely first class. I put my trust in them physically but practically I put my trust in God. I had complete confidence that he was going to be there and get me through it and wasn’t going to let me down.”

Nearly three years on, Roger has made a full recovery and physically he doesn’t feel any different than he did before the operation. And the icing on the cake was getting to meet Tom face-to-face last spring after the pair exchanged letters through their transplant co-ordinators.

Donors and recipients normally remain anonymous but Roger and Tom decided to waive that right to highlight the benefits of organ donation.

“Meeting Tom face-to-face and seeing how well he was doing made it all worth it,” Roger said. “He’s gone from being really poorly and having quite an abnormal childhood to being pretty much well and going to school normally and being able to do all the things that a boy his age should be doing. It’s amazing to see.”

Roger hopes sharing his story will encourage others to consider making a donation to help save a life.

“There are thousands of people with kidney disease and having a pretty miserable time waiting for a kidney,” he said. “There is so much bad in the world. This is a way of doing something good and positive for someone for no other reason than love. I have seen the difference it has made to a young boy’s life and to be able to do that for someone is an immense privilege.”

INTERESTED?

If Roger’s story has inspired you to consider becoming a donor, visit the NHS organ donor register website http://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/how_to_become_a_donor/ or call the NHS Donor Line on 0300 123 23 23.

ORGAN DONATION FACTFILE

• Since the start of this type of donation in 2007, QA Hospital has carried out 31 altruistic donations.
• In 2012, Portsmouth contributed the largest number of altruistic kidneys in the country.
• Figures released in May 2013 showed that the number of living people giving one of their organs to a stranger almost tripled in one year in the UK.
• The Human Tissue Authority approved 104 altruistic organ donations in 2012-13 compared with 38 the previous year.