Whether it's a distant family member, friend or complete stranger you want to help, you can donate a kidney through certain transplant centers. If you decide to become a living donor, you will undergo extensive questioning to ensure that you are aware of the risks and that your decision to donate isn't based on financial gain. You will also undergo testing to determine if your kidneys are in good shape and whether you can live a healthy life with just one kidney.
Myth: Rich and famous people go to the top of the list when they need a donor organ. Fact: The rich and famous aren't given priority when it comes to allocating organs.
It may seem that way because of the amount of publicity generated when a celebrity receives a transplant, but they are treated no differently from anyone else. The reality is that celebrity and financial status are not considered in organ allocation.
Fact: The organ donor's family is never charged for donation. The family is charged for the costs of all final efforts to save your life, and those costs are sometimes misinterpreted as costs related to organ donation. Costs for organ removal go to the transplant recipient. Now that you have the facts, you can see that being an organ donor can make a big difference, and not just to one person. By donating your organs and tissue after you die, you can save or improve as many as 75 lives.
Many families say that knowing their loved one helped save or improve other lives helped them cope with their loss. It's especially important to consider becoming an organ donor if you belong to an ethnic minority. Minorities including African Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, and Hispanics are more likely than whites to have certain chronic conditions that affect the kidneys, heart, lung, pancreas and liver.
Certain blood types are more prevalent in ethnic minority populations. Because matching blood type is usually necessary for transplants, the need for minority donor organs is especially high. Becoming an organ donor is easy. You can indicate that you want to be a donor in the following ways:. The best way to ensure that your wishes are carried out is to register with your state's organ donation registry and include donor designation on your driver's license or state ID.
Taking these steps legally authorizes your organ donation upon death. If you have designated someone to make health care decisions for you if you become unable to do so, make sure that person knows that you want to be an organ donor.
You may also include your wishes in your living will if you have one, but that might not be immediately available at the time of your death. It's also very important to tell your family that you want to be a donor. Hospitals seek consent from the next of kin before removing organs, although this is not required if you're registered with your state's donor registry or have donor designation on your driver's license or state ID card.
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A single copy of these materials may be reprinted for noncommercial personal use only. This site complies with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information: verify here. This content does not have an English version. Explore data from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Every donor can save 8 lives and enhance over 75 more. Every 9 minutes another person is added to the transplant waiting list. The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network maintains the national database of information about the candidate waiting list and transplant surgeries.
You can build a custom report on their website to learn more about organ transplantation in the U. Looking for more statistics? There are currently over , people on the national transplant waiting list.
Like America, the list is diverse — it includes people of every age, ethnicity, and gender. You can learn more about the numbers and see specific statistical breakdowns with Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network National Data. Shared ethnicity is NOT a requirement for matching organ donors and recipients. There are not too many things that can stop you from donating your organs. Becoming an organ donor is easy.
You can indicate this at the state-level by opting into this and having it displayed on your state-issued I. Or you can visit OrganDonor. It is not possible to become both an organ donor and a body donor because to be a body donor you must have all your organs. Click here more information on Body Donation. Saving favorite articles is a Premium feature. To ensure the authenticity of reviews at Funerals, we require you to register or login prior to sharing your review with the Funerals community.
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