Bermudian Mr. Bobby Jones was stricken with a number of illnesses and did not believe he would live much past the age of 50 when he got a life-saving phone call from the New England Organ Bank.

A kidney match had been found, he was told.

Mr. Jones is living proof of the success of Bermuda's vital ten-year organ donor link with the United States -- which was in danger of being severed this year.

Legislation limiting foreigners' access to American organs went before the US Congress this summer. Organs were scarce and there was a belief that wealthy foreigners were unfairly gaining access to them, The Royal Gazette reported in October.

But a visiting team from the NEOB yesterday assured the relationship would be saved.

The legislation was being reworded to make Bermuda an "exception'', NEOB hospital services director Ms Christine Buckley, heading the team, announced at a news conference at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

"The legislation was drafted without any awareness of Bermuda's longstanding relationship with the US Organ Procurement Transplant Network (which oversees donations and transplants),'' she said. "It was unintentional. They did not realise Bermuda's unique relationship with the OPTN.'' Government and the NEOB, the nearest organ bank to Bermuda, had argued on Bermuda's behalf, saying the Island donated more organs to America than it received.

In the last decade, it received between one and two donors a year -- each yielding up to four organs -- while some 26 Bermudians received 28 organ transplants from the NEOB, which deals with King Edward VII Memorial Hospital referrals.

If the law was approved in its current form, Bermudians' chances of an organ match would be severely limited given the Island's small population.

A provision in it required a separate organ transplant waiting list for non-resident aliens and that all Americans be given first offer of an available organ.

The NEOB team was also on the Island to help hospital staff encourage more Bermudians to donate organs.

Ms Buckley and colleague Mrs. Joanne Radnor believed there was "clearly a need'' for a public education programme to get more Bermudians to make a decision in writing on whether or not to donate their organs in the event of sudden death.

The programme would emphasise the importance of organ donation and that something good can come from tragedy, she said.

This year, four residents donated organs, including hearts, livers, kidneys, pancreas and eye corneas.

At the NEOB's expense, teams of surgeons flew to Bermuda to harvest the organs.

Nurse Ms Julia Stroud, who helps ask families of brain dead people to consider organ donations, said many had turned down the option because they were already suffering enough over the death of their loved ones.

She believed it would be easier on families if more people made the decision to donate organs while alive, in the form of a living will.

Mr. Jones, who certainly knows the value of his gift, having been on the NEOB's waiting list for eight years, believes there is an even better way to get more Bermudians to donate organs.

They could simply state their wishes on hospital records as there is only one hospital on the Island, he said.

Mr. Jones, the owner of Four Winds Fishing Tackle, suffered kidney failure after a bout of scarlet fever when he was 12. He had to go on dialyses until a suitable kidney was found.

After receiving his first kidney, he waited eight years for a second. Mr.

Jones' blood type is O-positive, which is the same as some 80 percent of the more than 32,000 people on the US waiting list.

Mr. Bobby Jones.