Sunday, January 24, 1999
Waiting list growing faster than organ donations
Report shows surge after new federal rule
BY TIM BONFIELD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Tristate organ donors saved more lives in 1998 than in 1997, even though the overall number of donors went down a bit.
But the increase in donated organs failed to keep pace with demand, as the waiting list for transplants continued to grow, according to a report by the Ohio Valley LifeCenter.
Forty-five people — including James and Christopher Frank, the Glen Este High School brothers who died after a car crash in December — gave the “gift of life” in 1998.
That's down from 50 donors in 1997. However, last year's donors provided 126 organs for transplant, up from 122 in 1997.
The decrease in organ donors most likely reflects a decrease in ideal candidates (such as people declared brain-dead after spending time on life-support machines).
Awareness and support for organ donation is going up, said LifeCenter spokesman Mark Sommerville.
The LifeCenter reported a late-year surge in donations resulting pri marily from new federal rules (effective in August) that require hospitals to provide “routine notification” to organ agencies about potential donors.
The surge was shown most clearly in tissue and eye donations, which are counted separately from solid-organ transplants. Tissue donations went up 18 percent from 223 in 1997 to 263 in 1998. Eye donations went up 9.5 percent, from 854 in 1997 to 935 in 1998.
Even so, the list for organ transplants keeps getting longer. In December 1996, there were 175 people waiting. In December 1998, there were 217. This week, 224.
There is some hope that waiting lists may start getting shorter. The LifeCenter predicts that notification rules will boost organ donation by 20 percent in the next two years.
Among the signs of growing support: intense public response to the story of the Frank brothers; record participation by churches and synagogues in a National Donor Sabbath held Nov. 13-15; an organ donation postage stamp that came out in August; and efforts to increase donations from non-heartbeating donors (a more common method of declaring death than brain death).
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Waiting list growing faster than organ donations
