Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Jobs speaks about transplant, champions donor bill


By Serenity Caldwell, Macworld
Networkworld.com

While Washington debated the merits of its proposed health care bill, Apple CEO Steve Jobs made a rare public appearance at a hospital in Palo Alto to champion his own cause: organ donation. Last year, Jobs received a liver transplant in Tennessee after taking a leave of absence from work for health reasons. On Friday, at a press conference held at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, Jobs spoke in detail about his procedure and about California's proposed measure to help other residents on the state's waiting list.

"This coming week is my one year anniversary," Jobs said, smiling, to the crowd. The Mercury News covered and videotaped the conference (video embedded below), which focused on California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's new legislative proposal regarding the expansion of the donor list. The bill would require the state's Department of Motor Vehicles to add an additional field to its drivers license application regarding organ and tissue donation. Currently, the field--which asks applicants to select whether they would like to be a donor or not--is optional. In addition, it would create a "California Living Donor Registry" for kidney patients, matching them with people willing to donate a healthy kidney.

Jobs spoke briefly about his own experience on the transfer list, stating "there were simply not enough livers in California to go around, and my doctors here [at Stanford] advised me to enroll in a transplant program in Memphis, where the supply-demand ratio of livers is more favorable than it is in California." According to Jobs, more than 3400 people in the Golden State needed an organ transplant last year, but a mere 671 transplants took place, and 400 people died while waiting.

The Apple CEO, according to the governor, was "instrumental" in getting the bill put together. "Because [Jobs] is a wealthy man, that helped him get the transplant," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "But he doesn't want that--that only wealthy people can get the transplant and have a plane waiting to take him anywhere he needs to go... everyone ought to have the right to get a transplant immediately."



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Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network. NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants. One tissue donor can help up to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant.




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