HEARTS and lungs abused by years of smoking are being routinely used in Welsh transplant operations because donated organs are so scarce.

Wales on Sunday has learned dying patients are left facing the agonising choice of taking what’s on offer or waiting for healthier organs to come along.

Now calls have been made for the Wales and UK-wide policy to be reviewed.

Wales Lib Dem health spokesman Peter Black AM condemned the current system, saying: “The whole point of a transplant is to extend life and improve health and that is not happening.

“I’m surprised smoker’s lungs are used. I was not aware that was a routine procedure and that needs to be reviewed by the transplant authority.”

The revelation follows reports Iraq war veteran Matthew Millington died after he received a pair of cancerous lungs. They were donated by a smoker who got through 30 to 50 roll-ups a day.

Desperately ill Stewart Rankin, who used to run a shop in Llanedeyrn, Cardiff, was born with his heart the wrong way round. He is in dire need of a transplant.

The 59-year-old Glaswegian, who lives in Newport, said: “It’s very hard for the medics to ascertain whether someone has been a very heavy smoker all their life. They don’t have a lot of time to do it in.

“I would be pretty peed off about being given smoker’s organs, but I would know that I had been given another chance.

“I would thank them for that but I would be pretty annoyed that someone had made lifestyle choices to abuse their body with cigarettes, food, alcohol or whatever.”

He added: “Do I say, ‘hang on I’ll take my chances and stay where I am’ or do I go with it? It’s a catch 22.”

He conceded he would take a smoker’s donated heart. But he said: “We make these choices with guns to our heads.”

A spokeswoman for the NHS Blood and Transplant service insisted organs were screened for suitability.

She said: “Clinicians will decide whether or not they are acceptable for use based on a number of vigorous tests.

“All transplant surgery carries a risk. There is detailed screening of the donors’ medical history and lifestyle in order to gather as much knowledge as possible, but the balance of risk applies when a transplant is the difference between life and death.”

She added: “We have a policy that organs are taken from smokers and non-smokers and the state of the organ is determined by the clinician at the time.

“There are some that cannot be transplanted because they are not fit for purpose, but the surgeon will make that decision based on tests they do.”

Organs are only refused from the bodies of patients who had HIV or vCJD – the human form of “mad cow disease”.

Patient’s Association spokeswoman Vanessa Bourne dubbed the Millington case “tragic”. She said: “This underlines the importance of everyone making their organ donation views clear.

“If there were more organs available, the necessity to use the organs of higher risk donors would go away.

“We have long campaigned for all patients to give properly informed consent, and this is of particular importance for transplant patients.”

Deborah Arnott, director of anti-smoking lobby group Ash, said: “Just because you are a smoker does not mean you have lung cancer, and his medication encouraged the cancer to develop more rapidly in the Matthew Millington case.

“If you were to exclude all smokers from transplant, given the lack of organs available, it would make things very difficult, and in many cases it’s not going to be a problem.

“If you are going to die otherwise you probably would be willing to take smoker’s organs. One in five of the adult population are smokers.”