Grandfather set to get new hands

Peter Walsh is awaiting government funding for a hand transplant. Photo / Supplied

Australian surgeons are poised to perform the country's first double hand transplant on a former plumber who lost his hands and feet three years ago after contracting pneumococcal disease.

Previously healthy and active, Peter Walsh, 64, is now totally dependent on his family. He hopes the operation will restore some quality of life, as well as enabling him to hold his 16 grandchildren.

"You'd love to be able to pick 'em up and do that, but I can't," he told ABC radio yesterday.

Limb transplants are performed infrequently because anti-rejection drugs, which have to be taken for the rest of a patient's life, can cause diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Walsh's surgeon, Professor Wayne Morrison, believes that in his case the benefits outweigh the risks.

Morrison's team, based at St Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne, are waiting for a suitable donor. They are looking for someone of about Walsh's age, and will use both hands from one person. Morrison said Walsh would be able to move his hands within four weeks of surgery, although it would take months for the nerves to regenerate and sensation to return.

Walsh, from Cobden, Victoria, had his hands and feet amputated after contracting the sometimes fatal disease, which in his case led to acute septicaemia. Morrison said he was "confined to a life of total dependency where he can't eat, can't feed himself, can't dress himself, can't go to the toilet, can't change his shoes, can't pick up the telephone".

He added: "Even if he only has one hand transplanted, that's going to be an enormous functional benefit to him."

About 50 double hand transplants have been carried out in Europe and the United States over the past decade, with good results.

Walsh told the Herald-Sun: "My grandkids accept me as I am now, but they would be delighted to see me with fingers. They think I can buy fingers from the supermarket."

Morrison, a microsurgeon at the hospital's O'Brien Institute, said the case was a challenge for donor agencies, as people were accustomed to the idea of donating organs, but not limbs.