OUR headline on the front page of The Citizen today poses the question: Would you give a kidney to a stranger?

And our reporter who wrote the story, Nadia Stone, said: "They might be perfect strangers, but they will share a unique bond for the rest of their lives".

This is an amazing story and testament to the incredible, selfless generosity of Chris Kendall of Bristol who had never met David Mayes of Barnwood, Gloucester, before.

But he was prepared to give up a kidney to him because he heard a news report about altruistic giving and decided it was something he could do.

Chris had not even known the gender of the person who would receive his kidney.

Incredibly, he was one of 23 people in the country making the sacrifice because he could.

The decision that Chris made to become a donor is all the more important when you consider that three people a day die waiting for a transplant.

Now, both Chris and David rightly believe that much more should be done to encourage altruistic giving.

Exactly three years ago, The Citizen launched a campaign to urge more people to sign the organ donor register.

Since we started that campaign, an extra 29,777 people have signed up in the county, and we thank our readers for responding to that call to save the lives of others.

We now wish to make another plea to encourage the type of donation of organs that Chris made to David.

Giving up a part of his body to someone he had never met. An amazing gift.

How many more of us are prepared to do what Chris did?

If you are prepared to make that gift of life to a person, please let us know – contact ian.mean@glosmedia.co.uk.

OUR first comment in this column today is an amazing story that more than illustrates the extraordinary service that the NHS is in Gloucestershire.

We do have the best national health service in the world. But we must maintain it.

However, the White Paper on NHS reforms does put a huge responsibility our GPs.

We are all for getting health services back into the community and making doctors the people responsible for administering those services to the patients they know best.

But is it realistic to expect local GPs to take charge of the NHS purse strings?

This new coalition has done a good job in its short life, but it must be careful to ensure that our NHS is not, in any way, damaged.