Reg Green: Organ donors give others the gift of life
Article Launched:12/31/2006 06:12:45 PM PST
Pasadena Star News
IN the past year, the number of Californians registered to be organ and tissue donors has soared. A year ago, there were 200,000. Today there are nearly 900,000. Some of these registrants have already saved lives.
While the efforts of thousands of health care professionals and volunteers have been pushing up these numbers for years, this stunning increase is due to one simple change: as of July 1, every time a California resident applies for or renews a driver license or ID card at the DMV, the opportunity to register as a potential organ and tissue donor is offered.
It's true that previously hundreds of thousands of Californians had taken the trouble to indicate on their driver licenses their wish to be donors. But in the trauma that follows sudden death - a road accident, or an unexpected stroke - family members are generally too distraught to hunt for the wallet or purse with the vital information in it.
Rarely has the family had any sort of discussion about organ donation. Suddenly, with their minds already in turmoil at losing a loved one, they are called on to make a decision they had never thought about seriously. Not surprisingly, it is too much for most people. They say no - and often regret it for the rest of their lives. And, on average, three or four desperately sick people on the waiting list for a liver or heart or other organ are condemned to death.
Now, the Donate Life California Organ and Tissue Donor Registry can be accessed by authorized health care professionals so that if one of your family members is admitted to a hospital and declared brain-dead, you will know without a doubt if they had decided to offer their organs and/or tissue. That makes all the difference because, in their calmer moments, 90 percent of Americans say they are in favor of helping others live when they no longer need their own body.
Organs are the most obvious gift a person can make, but donated tissue can help literally dozens of others - corneas to prevent blindness, bone to straighten spines and avoid amputations, skin to cure excruciating burns and tendons that allow the bedridden to walk again.
All America will have the opportunity to see what donor families look like in the Rose Parade, where the riders on the Donate Life float will be people who made the decision to give life to others.
Some are living donors, who gave a kidney to a loved one and are now living healthily with just one, but most are families who, though numb with shock at the time, put aside their grief long enough to help complete strangers.
The float is sponsored by the transplant community across North America. Among the riders are three Latinos, two African Americans, two Asians and one Native American.
The most striking thing about these families is how, like everyone else, they are mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, with all the everyday hopes and fears of modern living. Yet, on average, each of these families has saved the lives of at least three other people. By that one decision, they have done more to change the world for the better than most people will do in their entire lives.
Anyone reading this can put themselves in a position to do the same by watching the Rose Parade broadcast today and and by registering to become an organ and tissue donor. Both take little time, but can make all the difference in the world.
To register to be a donor in California, go to
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org (or
www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org) or sign up at your local DMV.
www.nicholasgreen.orgReg Green is the father of Nicholas Green, the 7-year-old boy who died during a botched robbery in Italy in 1994. Reg and Maggie Green donated Nicholas' organs and saved seven lives. Reg is an internationally recognized expert on the impact of donation decisions. The Greens run the Nicholas Green Foundation and live in La Ca ada Flintridge.
URL:
http://pasadenastarnews.com/opinions/ci_4930102
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