A POSTER CHILD for organ donation has become the latest backer of The Press’ Lifesavers campaign.

Naomi Smith, 17, had a liver transplant when she was just 16 months old and was struck down with autoimmune hepatitis at five. She takes pills every day to control her condition and combat organ rejection.

But she is also a star athlete with City of York Athletics Club, competed in the British Transplant Games earlier this year and has become one of the top campaigners for organ donation, appearing on one of the NHS’s promotional posters.

Naomi, 17, said: “Obviously I am on a different side to it and I have seen a lot of people who have had transplants and it is amazing to see the opportunities they have been given thanks to organ donors.

“What I would say to anyone considering being a donor is that it is obviously a very big decision – especially if you don’t know anybody personally who has a need for it, such as my family who have all become donors – but I would tell them to strongly consider it.

“That decision could give someone a life and a future.

“When I was 16 months old, I had a liver transplant and because of this, these days, I am a normal happy kid – all thanks to that donor.”

Naomi backed The Press’ campaign, which was launched on Wednesday with the aim of recruiting 20,000 more registered donors in our area by the end of 2010.

Naomi, who was born in Bridlington and lives in Driffield, was born with biliary artesia, a disease that stops the body processing bile, causing it to build up and damage the liver. She needed blood transfusions for her first six months before getting her life-saving transplant.

She had her first operation when she was just six weeks old and spent much of her first year in hospital.

More about Naomi’s story can be found on her website at www.naomitherunner.co.uk