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printer-friendlyDr. Arthur Matas, one of our transplant surgeons, has been head of the kidney transplant program at the University of Minnesota for many years and now directs our Living Donor Program. He leads the team of authors posting to our blog. That team includes Cheryl Jacobs, Dawn Larson, Margaret Voges and Cathy Garvey, who work with our donors every day.
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How do we increase altruistic kidney donation?
Given the tremendous shortage of organs (there are over 80,000 people on the waiting list for a transplant in the United States, see www.unos.org), every effort should be made to increase organ donation. One of the programs we are proud of at our institution is our non-directed donor program in which donors can offer to give a kidney to anyone on the waiting list. We began this program over 10 years ago, and since then over 55 "heroes" have donated a kidney to someone they had never met and had no promise of meeting, and for no other reason than the joy of doing something that was of benefit to another person. Similar programs now exist throughout the world.
When our program was set up, we felt it was best if donor and recipient did not meet for at least 6 months. However, if the recipient wanted to send a letter of thanks to the donor, it would be sent via our transplant center. The donor might then respond, again via the transplant center. If both want to meet, we facilitate the meeting a minimum of 6 months after the transplant. To date, nearly half of the donor-recipient pairs have met.
Given the number of people waiting for a kidney, what do you think would inspire or motivate more people to donate a kidney to someone they may not even know?
Posted: 4/5/2010 9:24 a.m. by Arthur Matas, M.D.
Comments:
Chris mentions an important consideration and worry. However, long-term follow-up of thousands of donors (from many countries) has shown that kidney donors do not have an increased chance of getting kidney disease. We agree that everyone should sign a donor card (and that way potentially be able to donate kidneys and other organs). And we think it important that any living donor understand the risks associated with the operation,
Posted: 4/15/2010 4:13 p.m. by Arthur Matas, M.D.
Donor registries are intended for deceased donor transplant and LifeSource like all organ procurement agencies in the United States are marketing the registry. Living donors will never provide enough organs but it is a great option to help a patient with end stage kidney disease now.
Posted: 4/15/2010 4:01 p.m. by Barry Friedman, R.N.
I think more should be done to encourage people to sign the organ donor register. If we all ended up being altruistic donors, who is going to donate to us when eventually we get kidney problems. Organ donor register signups is what is required.
Posted: 4/15/2010 2:46 p.m. by Chris Edwards
