Cleveland organ program helps minorities on wait listPosted by jmorona July 28, 2008 12:42PM
Dale Hemphill's mother, grandfather and an uncle all suffered from diabetes.
But Hemphill, 46, of Euclid, somehow thought he was, in his words, "bulletproof."
In January 2006, he found out he wasn't.
While acting on a New Year's resolution to get a complete physical for the first time in nearly 20 years, Hemphill heard the doctor tell him that his blood sugar level was way off the charts. Hemphill was ordered to go to the emergency room.
A week later, he left the hospital with a diagnosis of diabetes, high cholesterol and hypertension. By summer, Hemphill was blind and in kidney failure. The following March, he started dialysis.
"It was so sudden and happened so quickly that now you have life-changing events that you have to deal with," he said.
Several weeks ago, Hemphill traveled to Washington, D.C., courtesy of the National Kidney Foundation, to speak before Congress about the struggle kidney patients have with Medicare funding.
This week, in between his every-other-day dialysis regimen, he's doing all he can to tell how area residents can help people like him who are on the national waiting list for an organ.
The Cleveland Minority Organ and Tissue Transplant Education Program, in conjunction with University Hospitals and more than a dozen other partners, will host the "Love Yourself, Take Care of Yourself" community health fair, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday at the UH Otis Moss Jr. Health Center, 8819 Quincy Ave., Cleveland.
Aug. 1 has been National Minority Organ Donor Awareness Day since 1996. For the first time, Cleveland MOTTEP is putting on its own event.
The two-fold mission of National MOTTEP is not only to increase the number of minority organ and tissue transplant donors but also -- through prevention and lifestyle change -- to decrease the rate at which minorities need those transplants.
"We wanted to do something bigger this year, take it to a different level," said Mark Robinson, executive director of the Cleveland group. The number of local organizations agreeing to take part was a pleasant surprise, he said. Organizers hope to draw at least 200 people.
"The awareness is gradually increasing, but there is still a tremendous shortage of [organ] availability," said Dr. Charles Modlin, one of only a handful of black transplant surgeons in the country. Modlin also is the director of the Minority Men's Health Center of Cleveland Clinic's Glickman Urological Institute and the Clinic's Center for Health Equity.
"When it comes to minorities and organ donation, there's a lot of fear and misconception," he said. "We need to do more to get out there and change that."
http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2008/07/cleveland_organ_program_helps.html
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