St. Alexius Celebrates National Donate Life Month
Posted on 4/11/2007
Currently, there are 95,783 people on the national waiting list for organs, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. The people on this waiting list depend on you to become organ and tissue donors. However, only about 25,000 people receive transplants each year. Seventeen people who are waiting die each day simply because there are not enough organs available.
April is National Donate Life Month and St. Alexius Medical Center is bringing awareness about organ and tissue donation.
The fact is that only 34 percent of American people know the proper steps for committing to donation. To make this commitment of extending the gift of life through donation, check the box on your drivers’ license or identification card and be sure to communicate your wishes with your family. “Education must be a continuing effort to both the public and medical personnel to increase the shortage of donor organs,” says Donna Gage, RN, Director of Medical/Surgical/Emergency Trauma Care at St. Alexius Medical Center. “Organ donation is considered a generous gift, a gift of life, a true gesture of self-giving love.”
All patients waiting for a transplant in the United States are put on the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). This list gives names of potential transplant recipients in order of priority. Matching priority is based upon criteria such as the severity of the patient’s illness, length of time waiting for the transplant, blood type and size of organ. Genetic tissue matching is a key factor for pancreas and kidney transplants, where a match is critical in minimizing the risk of organ rejection.
LifeSource, a non-profit organization dedicate to saving lives through organ and tissue donation, contacts the transplant surgeon caring for the first patient on the list. Laboratory tests designed to measure the compatibility between donor and organ and recipient are necessary for some transplants. A surgeon will not accept the organ if these tests show that the patient’s immune system will reject it. If the organ is turned down, the next one is contacted, and so on, until a match is found.
Organs and tissue can only be donated after death has been declared. Age and health criteria are evaluated on an individual basis at the time of death; everyone should consider themselves a potential organ and tissue donor.