Media invitation - Vincent Lambert goes home! - Mere days after receiving a new heart the 15 year-old is ready to leave the Montreal Children's Hospital

MONTREAL, June 27, 2012 /CNW Telbec/ - He's bounced back with vigour!  A mere few days after having a heart transplant operation, 15-year old Vincent Lambert returns home to his family, friends and dog Max. The teen has recovered quickly from the operation during which a team of cardiac surgeons, nurses and other medical professionals removed his defective heart and replaced it with a donor heart.

Please join us to hear from Vincent, his parents and members of his medical team, before he is officially discharged from the hospital as an inpatient.

WHEN:	June 28, 2012 at 14 h 30
WHERE:	Montreal Children's Hospital 2300 Tupper Street, corner Atwater Amphitheatre

Background
When Vincent was three-months old he was infected by a virus that damaged his heart. He was monitored by the hospital and led a fairly normal life until the spring of 2011, when he went into heart failure. Medications helped for a while, but by autumn 2011 it was clear his heart was giving out.  Vincent was admitted to the Montreal Children's Hospital in September and was placed on a mechanical heart, termed a Berlin heart, on September 18, 2011. This was a temporary situation, until he received a new heart. During this time, he remained in hospital because he required around the clock monitoring by a team of specialists in the hospital's Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. It was a long waiting game.

During Organ Donation week in April 2012, Vincent and his family along with his health care team and Transplant Quebec held a press conference to encourage Quebecers to sign their organ donation cards to potentially help Vincent of the hundreds of Canadians waiting for a life altering or life saving organ.

Vincent underwent his heart transplant operation in early June.

Lisa Dutton
Manager
Public Relations and Communications
The Montreal Children's
Hospital McGill University Health Centre
514-412-4307