A GRIEVING family claims a grandmother was given two damaged hearts during supposedly life-saving operations.

Carol Smith, 50, of Dinant Avenue, Canvey, died the day after surgery at Papworth Hospital, near Cambridge.

The hospital announced last week it was suspending heart transplants because of an increase in the number of early deaths.

Mrs Smith, who had four children and four grandchildren, suffered from a condition caused by an enlarged heart and underwent her first transplant on March 8 this year.

Complications led to her having another transplant on May 13 but she never regained consciousness.

Her family believe the hearts she received were damaged and her treatment was rushed.

Her husband Gerry, 51, who has since moved to Thorney Bay Road, Canvey, with the couple's two youngest children, said: "We are concerned that the two hearts she received were damaged.

"We also feel that perhaps if the hospital had waited longer than nine weeks, her condition would have stabilised and she may not have needed the second operation.

"It was very rushed. She found out on the Thursday night she could have a second heart transplant and on the Saturday she rang me to say she loved me and went into the operating theatre."

Mr Smith said his wife did not need to have the first transplant urgently but had lost four stone in preparation for the operation and felt healthy, so decided to go ahead with it.

He added: "She was not an invalid. We'd been to Egypt that year and the only sign that she wasn't fully fit was she was breathless."

Her death has left a hole in the close-knit family, and Mr Smith with two teenagers to bring up on his own.

The heart transplant programme at Papworth is now under review following a demand from the Healthcare Commission.

It has been revealed seven out of 20 transplant patients died within 30 days of receiving a new heart at the hospital this year, a death rate of 35 per cent. The national average is 10 per cent, and the Papworth average is normally just seven per cent.

The hospital said it carries out one or two transplants each fortnight and will carry out emergency surgery if necessary. It is one of only five hospitals in the country where heart transplants are conducted. It has been suggested surgeons are being forced to transplant imperfect hearts, kidneys and livers because of a national shortage of organs.

Chris Rudge, managing and transplant director of UK Transplant, which matches organs to patients, said surgeons were having to use hearts from donors who had died in their sixties.

But he stressed he had no reason to think hearts used at Papworth Hospital were worse than those used elsewhere.

He blamed the shortage of younger organs on a lack of willing donors.

No one at Papworth Hospital was available to comment.