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In This Issue:
From left, Kevin OConnor, senior vice president, New England Organ Bank, Kevin Kiely, hospital relations coordinator, New England Organ Bank, Galen Henderson, MD, Neuro-Intensivist, Richard Luskin, president and CEO, New England Organ Bank, Gary Gottlieb, MD, BWH president, Andy Whittemore, MD, BWH CMO, Shaun Golden, RN, nurse manager, NeuroScience ICU, Martha Burke, MSW, director of Social Work and Care Coordination, Philip Camp, MD, thoracic surgeon, and Kathy Gallivan, director of Chaplaincy.
As BWH concluded the fiscal year this fall, the hospital marked what has been an extremely important year for organ donation and transplantation. The hospitals face transplantNew Englands firstin April marked a new frontier in transplant surgery, and BWH also had its highest number of organ donors this year.
The 16 organ donors were able to give 59 organs to 55 patients, and 33 tissue donors, each of whom help as many as 200 patients.
The families of these organ donors are heroes, said Galen Henderson, MD, medical director of the Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit. They make this decision to help give someone else life amid an extremely difficult, emotional time.
BWHs consistently high rates of organ donation earned the hospital the Medal of Honor from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The medal was awarded to BWH and other hospitals and organ procurement organizations that convert at least 75 percent of eligible donors to actual donors during the fifth National Learning Congress for the Donation and Transplantation Community of Practice in Grapevine, Tex., last month.
The need for organ donors continues to be enormous, as 103,000 people are currently awaiting life-saving transplantation. In an effort to help increase the number of registered organ donors, the New England Organ Bank has launched an online registry at www.donatelifenewengland.org
This site is a parallel registry to the Registry of Motor Vehicles, said Kevin Kiely, BWHs liaison for the New England Organ Bank. Its another avenue for people 18 and older to sign up without going to the RMV or for those who do not have a drivers license.
Nationwide, the goal is to have 100 million people register through the various available registries to become organ donors.
Sometimes families who lose a loved one are not sure of his or her final wishes, and knowing the loved one was registered as an organ donor takes the burden off the family during a difficult time, said Shaun Golden, BSN, RN, nurse manager of the Neuroscience ICU.
He added, But everyone should have conversations with their families about their wishes to become an organ donor.
•103,000 patients are awaiting life-saving transplantation in the U.S.
• 28,000 patients received transplantation last year
• 18 people a day die while awaiting transplantation>