Each day 18 Americans die because they fail to receive a life-saving organ donation. Memorial Medical Center (MMC) and The Center for Organ Recovery and Education (CORE) are teaming up to celebrate April as National Donate Life Month. On Thursday, April 1, at 11:30 a.m. in MMC’s Clinical Pavilion Atrium, representatives from CORE will discuss the importance of organ donation and present MMC with an award for facility’s organ donation efforts.
The goal of this month-long observance, which came about due to a Congressional proclamation in 2003, is to highlight the critical need for designated donors. Each year, April is full of activities, programs and media stories featuring donor families and transplant recipients sharing their personal accounts about the impact the gift of life has had on them. While there are many success stories, hundreds of thousands more live compromised lives because they have not received a needed tissue donation to enhance their daily routines or to restore vision.
“More than 100,000 people are currently waiting for an organ transplant, with someone new added to that list every 12 minutes,” says S. Lee Miller, MD, Chairman, Department of Surgery, MMC, and Chief Medical Officer of CORE in Pittsburgh. “April is an opportunity to raise awareness about this important need and encourage people to designate themselves as an organ donor, which is a very simple thing to do. If you can get on the Internet or make a trip to the DMV, then you can potentially save a life by becoming an organ donor.”
In Pennsylvania, the organ donor designation is noted by the words “organ donor” in green on the driver’s license or state identification card. Pennsylvanians can designate themselves as an organ donor by logging onto www.donatelife-pa.org and following the links to sign onto the donor registry or when getting their driver’s license or state identification card reissued at the DMV.
Currently, the Pennsylvania Donor Registry is only 44 percent filled, and among the 48 states that have registries, Pennsylvania is below many of the states listed, including Ohio, Illinois, Iowa and Utah.
For more information, please contact the CORE Communications/Community Relations Department at 1-800-DONORS-7 or visit the website at www.core.org.
About the Conemaugh Health System
Serving over a half-million patients each year through the Conemaugh Physician Group, a network of hospitals, specialty clinics and patient focused programs; Conemaugh Health System (CHS) is the largest healthcare provider in West Central Pennsylvania with 4,500+ employees and 350 physicians. For more information visit www.conemaugh.org.
