Organ donation helps minorities

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Organ donation helps minorities
By JAY CAMPBELL
Posted: May 3, 2008

Milwaukee is a city proud of its racial heritage but troubled by racial friction. Every health care provider knows that in Milwaukee, African-Americans are concerned when they walk through our doors, concerned that they may be poorly served. And perhaps there is good reason for that concern. Poverty and child mortality rates are too high among African-Americans, as are rates of cardiac disease and liver disease. High blood pressure and kidney disease are near epidemic proportions.

With this general mistrust of the health care system, African-Americans are sometimes hesitant about organ donation: They wonder why they should give such a precious gift to a health care system that, if it doesn't exclude people of color, doesn't always try hard enough to include them.

But with organ donation, African-Americans have a cause that embraces and cures the black community like no other. African-Americans suffer from kidney disease (caused by high blood pressure) far more than other races, and African-Americans need dialysis and kidney transplants far more than other races. In fact, African-Americans make up 35% of the people needing organ transplants in Wisconsin and nationally, while African-Americans make up only 13% of the population.

In the past, African-Americans in Milwaukee have resisted organ donation. In 2005, only 20% of African Americans said yes when they were asked to donate a loved one's organs at the time of death. But in 2006, that changed.

The Wisconsin Donor Network, a nonprofit agency in Milwaukee that coordinates organ donation and serves organ donor families, changed how it serves the African-American community. WDN hired an African-American professional work force. It adopted a "serve the family first" policy that supported a donor family's decision about donation, whether they agreed to donation or not. It began serving families after the death of a loved one even if they said no to donation (providing family comfort shawls, helping with memory handprints and locks of hair and providing a chaplain and other trained staff to comfort families for as long as they needed).

WDN developed programs with the mayor's office, the governor's office, educational institutions, many black-owned businesses, radio stations and newspapers. It reached out to black churches, holding free clinics for blood pressure and kidney disease testing. It supported anti-violence campaigns and fatherhood initiatives and funded an obituary/memorial project in an African-American newspaper. It also developed radio, TV and print materials for the African-American community, emphasizing its commitment to improving the overall health of people of color.

As WDN improved its outreach to the African-American community, the response to organ donation improved dramatically. Remember that, in 2005, only 20% of African-Americans said yes to organ donation at the time of a loved one's death. But in 2006 and 2007, 70% of African-Americans in Milwaukee said yes. African-American organ donors grew from eight in 2005 to 12 in 2006, and jumped to 30 in 2007. Each of those organ donors saved nearly three lives. In less than two years, about 75 lives were saved by the African-American community in Milwaukee.

What has happened in Milwaukee is a miracle of empowerment, community pride and community healing. What has happened in Milwaukee is also a miracle for those organ donor families who made the ultimate gift of life.

When African-Americans donate, African-Americans live. In Milwaukee, a community has begun to heal itself, and it is a true miracle of life - and life after death.

Jay Campbell is director of Wisconsin Donor Network.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=746511