Manitoba creates internet organ donor registry

Congratulations to Manitoba, Canada for taking the initiative to start an on-line organ donor registry. Other Canadian provinces, such as Ontario, are expected to announce similar on-line registries soon.

Source: CTV.ca

Manitoba's health minister announced a new $100,000 program Tuesday, which will create a new electronic registry for organ donors in hopes of saving lives.

"The electronic organ registry will help professionals identify a patient's wishes even faster," says Health Minister Theresa Oswald. "[It will help] ensure opportunities for organ donations aren't missed."

The registry is meant to help Manitobans like Kristin Millar, who relies on a battery operated pump to keep her alive while she waits for a heart transplant. She is one of 160 people who are waiting for a heart, lung or liver transplant in Manitoba. It's hoped an online registry will encourage more people to donate.

"I'm living with the chance of stroke, of machine failure and of infection," says Kristin Millar. "So I do need a heart transplant."

But some worry the new online registry won't do the job. Charlotte Roy's daughter, Jessica Bondar, recently died while waiting for a heart transplant. She says the online registry won't solve a consistent problem with organ donations.

"They're going to forget to sign up, they're going to mean to do it later," says Charlotte Roy. "They're not going to tell their loved ones what they want. It doesn't go far enough."

Roy says the registry should work the other way around. According to her, there should be a registry for people who don't wish to be a donor so everyone, by default, is an organ donor unless otherwise stated.

But, the province says that doesn't work.

"Where the opt-out clause is initiated, the rates of donations are not higher than places that take an altruistic approach," says Health Minister Theresa Oswald. Her government points out the number of organ donations have been growing steadily in Manitoba over the past few years.

"When comparing the periods between 2000 and 2005, and 2006 and 2010, Manitoba has seen a 76 per cent increase in kidney transplants, a 94 per cent increase in lung transplants, a 106 per cent increase in liver transplants and a 25 per cent increase in heart transplants," said Dr. Brendan McCarthy, medical director of the Transplant Manitoba Gift of Life Program. "This can be attributed to the ongoing investments made in Transplant Manitoba and the changes we've made to make organ donation easier for Manitobans."

The province says last year, Manitoba had one of the highest organ donation rates in Canada at 15.4 deceased donors per million people. Officials say Manitoba has seen a 67 per cent increase in organ donation over the past 15 years.

-With a report from CTV's Eleanor Coopsammy (view video)

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario at 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 or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help 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. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Wisconsin Online organ donation registration starts April 1, 2010

Congratulations to the state of Wisconsin for joining the 45 other states in implementing on-line organ and tissue donor registration. In this age of hi-tech where almost everyone has access to the internet it makes becoming an organ donor very easy to do. These new initiatives will lead to saving more lives as people get off the waiting lists for their transplant and a second chance at life.

By: Jules Miller, Wisconsin Public Radio, Superior Telegram

Beginning April 1, people in Wisconsin can register online to be organ donors.

Martha Mallon is president of the non-profit group Donate Life Wisconsin. She says the online registry will speed up the process of connecting patients with available organs. Mallon says the main goal is to save more lives, and “enhance the lives of people through eye and tissue donation.” She says there’s more than 106,000 people nationally waiting for organ transplants, and 18 people die every day before a suitable donor is found.

The online option will not replace the organ donor registry people sign up with when getting their Wisconsin driver’s license. Mallon says more than half of the state’s licensed drivers are on that registry. She expects that number to jump once the online option begins next month.

Forty-five other states currently have online donor registries.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

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.

University student: Donating organs is vital

It's great to see that university students are getting involved in promoting organ donation. This insightful perspective by a University of Pittsburgh student is very enlightening. It's now easier than ever to become an organ and tissue donor as more and more jurisdictions make it a simple task by just going on line and registering. See the links following this article.

By Ragini Grace Gupta / For The Pitt News

Every single person on this campus has the means to impact countless lives. There are currently more than 96,000 people waiting for an organ transplant in the US, according to The International Association for Organ Donation. Each day an average of 17 people die while waiting for an organ donation, and in the past 15 years the number of people on the list has grown by more than 200 percent in America, according to the Lourdes Health System. As medical science advances and new transplants become possible, hope for those waiting hangs solely on the generosity of organ donors.

When I first learned that organs could be given and taken, I was very young. Our housekeeper’s husband needed a kidney. My mom would ask her every week, “Did you find a donor?” and her reply was always, “Still waiting.”

The thought was scary — I doubt I even knew what a kidney was or what it did. Sometimes, the lack of knowledge hinders any chance of forming a connection with something. However, even though we might not be aware of something, it doesn’t mean it has no effect on us.

Originally, organ donation was something I always cringed at because, through my naivety, all I knew was that I was made of “guts.” In high school, I was reacquainted with organ donation at Girls State (an American Legion Auxiliary program for high school juniors in which participants simulate political contests), when a delegate presented a bill on organ donation awareness. The counselors loved the idea so much they gave each girl a handout on becoming an organ donor. At 16 I still thought the idea of organ donation was frightening. The thought of dying and having my organs put into other people was terrifying. Young people don’t think about mortality because, as we would like to believe, we “have our whole lives ahead of us.”

But death is something that we should not think of as so foreign. Everybody has been exposed to death directly or indirectly. Most of us have had family, friends or pets die. We have lamented over our favorite movie characters’ deaths and seen tragic stories about accidents and homicides.

While it is certainly not my intention to preoccupy you with the inevitability of death, I do want you to think about life. How can a person’s life change by receiving an organ? At first, I didn’t like the idea of organ donation because it reminded me of pain, illness and being no more. Then I saw the other side of it — a close family friend was in desperate need of a kidney and he received one from a total stranger. There are many people waiting on the organ transplant list and it is quite possible that you knew, know or will know somebody on that list. The people who suffer because they need healthy organs or tissues are siblings, parents or friends. Thinking about organ donation in a more personal way made it less scary and allowed me to open up more to the idea.

What’s the rush to become an organ donor? I don’t plan on dying any time soon. After coming to college and living by myself, however, I am more aware of all the ways a person could die just doing everyday things. Deaths caused by common things like being in an automobile, getting the flu or an infection are in the top 15 causes of death in the United States.

In the subset of accidents, the most common way to die is as a pedestrian. As students, we spend a lot of time walking on roads and being near cars. Slipping and hitting your head, alcohol poisoning, accidental drug overdose — there are plenty of ways that normal people doing normal things can die. Life is unpredictable — no one knows how long she will live, so we should not wait to become an organ donor, or to do anything for that matter. We may not have our whole lives to do it.

With this perspective, organ donation was no longer a subject to cringe about, but rather it is a reminder to take responsibility for a social issue.

You can become an organ donor by going to organdonor.gov and filling out an organ donor card and keeping it in your wallet. It is also very important to talk to your family about your decision, because you are their responsibility after your death..

E-mail Ragini at rgg6@pitt.edu and visit http://www.organdonor.gov to learn more.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

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.

Thank you for caring

As we enter another new year I would like to thank the individuals and donor families who helped to save the lives of thousands of people around the world by donating blood, bone marrow or organs and tissues for transplantation.

Also, a huge thanks to those who have taken the time to register to be an organ and tissue donor. But the need is still desperate because there are far more people on the waiting lists for a life-saving transplant than there are donors.

If you haven't already registered to be an organ and tissue donor why not make it a resolution to do it this year? The links are below. Thanks.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Register to be an organ and tissue donor & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

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.

Massachusetts Organ Donation Registry Opens Online

Congratulations to the State of Massachusetts for establishing an online donor registry for organ donation. In today's world of high-tech many jurisdictions around the globe are embracing online registries in an effort to increase the rate of organ donation and save many more lives. Right now, 18 people in the U.S. die each day while waiting for an organ or tissue transplant.

By Elizabeth Cooney Boston Globe

For more than 20 years Massachusetts drivers have been able to register as organ donors when they renewed their driver's licenses. Now there's another way for them to let their wishes be known.

The New England Donor Registry of Donate Life New England allows adults to register as organ donors and specify which organs or tissues they are willing to give after their death, a choice not available through the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles.

The online registry, which went live earlier this week, will not replace the state's program, but will create another way to potentially boost donations and transplants.

"People's expectations are 'I should be able to sign up online for anything,' so we're simply trying to be as accommodating as possible to people who want to sign up," said Sean Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for the New England Organ Bank, which has created the registry with LifeChoice Donor Services of Connecticut and Western Massachusetts and the Connecticut Eye Bank.

In Massachusetts, 41 percent of drivers are registered donors, a rate above the national average of 38 percent. But the average includes states whose driver licensing agencies don't have donor registries, and Massachusetts ranks just 32nd among states with registries. Half of the states with registries open for five years -- long enough for licenses to be renewed -- have donor rates above 50 percent.

In New England, the rate is 38 percent, not including Vermont, which is planning to start a program for drivers to register as donors, and New Hampshire, which began its driver registration program in February. As in other states, drivers in Vermont and New Hampshire could indicate their willingness to be an organ donor on their licenses, but being listed in a donor registry had not been part of the program.

More than 100,000 people in the country are waiting for a transplant, including 3,400 in New England, but there were just under 28,000 organ transplants nationally last year.

Registering for organ donation can also help family members whom potential donors leave behind when they die.

"If somebody is signed up as a donor through the registry, we work to see their wishes are fulfilled," Fitzpatrick said. "We have found that the next of kin are very appreciative when they find out the deceased had made the decision. That way they are not the ones that are left having to make decisions that they might not really know how the deceased felt about. To make this decision now is oftentimes helpful to the next of kin."

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Sign Your Donor Card & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

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.