Donate Life

April is Donate Life Month

Everyone can register to be an organ donor. However the transplant team will make the final decision if you can donate. There are a few health conditions that prevent donation such as active cancer, HIV/AIDS or infection.

There is no age limit to be a donor. The transplant team will look at the health of your organs.

As a donor you will receive the same medical lifesaving treatment as a non-donor. Every measure possible will be used to ensure your life is saved. It is only upon failure of live saving methods that you become a possible for a donor.

A national computer system matches donors with recipients. There are many factors used to determine a match between a donor and recipient. A few are: blood type, time spent waiting, how sick a potential recipient is etc. Income or celebrity status is not a consideration.

There is no cost to the family to donate organs or tissues. It is against Federal Law to buy and sell organs in the U.S.

The majority of deceased organ donors are patients who have been declared brain dead. Brain death is not the same as a coma. To learn more about Brain Death visit

https://www.organdonor.gov/about/process/deceased-donation.html#brain-death.

More than 125 million people are registered organ donors but less than 10% actually become donors when they die.

Patients waiting an organ donation are on a waiting list that is registered in a National Computer

Network. To see an up to date number of transplants performed and donors for 2017 please visit

https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/

I hope this brief over view is helpful. For more information please visit

https://www.organdonor.gov/index.html