Transplant dads die after receiving 'alcoholic homeless man's kidneys'

Two transplant patients have died within days of each other after both received kidneys from the same homeless alcoholic donor, an inquest in the UK has found.

Grandfather Robert Stuart, 67, and father-of-six Darren Hughes, 42, underwent the transplants at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff last year.

The men were not informed that the organs being given to them were infected with a parasitic worm which had killed their donor, reports the Daily Star .

Once the transplants were complete, the worm began laying eggs in the pair's organs and travelled to their brain.

Three weeks later Mr Stuart and Mr Hughes were dead.

It later emerged that the University Hospital of Wales had accepted the kidneys despite the organs being rejected by every other hospital they had been offered to.

Relatives of the two men said they would not have given their consent for the operation to go ahead if they had known the donor died from an infection.

Mr Hughes' father Ian told the court that he thought the donor was a young man who had been killed in a car crash earlier that day.

"Darren was not told he would be receiving an infected kidney. I now feel that I signed his death warrant," Mr Hughes said.

"After he died we were told that the donor lived rough, was alcoholic, had cirrhosis of the liver and that they didn't know the cause of the meningitis that killed him."

Mr Stuart's wife Judith said she and her husband had only just returned from a cruise and were looking forward to the birth of their second grandchild.

"We weren't told anything whatsoever about the donor or his lifestyle. I walked down with Jim and said goodbye at the theatre doors," Mrs Stuart said.

The inquest continues.