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Six Quick Facts About Donation
Over 110,400 people are currently waiting for an organ transplant in the United States.
Over 4,300 people are being added to the waiting list each month.
Of the 88,102 people currently waiting for a kidney: 33,889 are white (38%); 30,244 are African American (34%) and 16,290 are Hispanic (18%).
There were 28,664 organ transplants last year, including kidney, heart, liver, lung, intestine and pancreas.
Every day, 18 people die while waiting for an organ transplant, because of the lack of available organs. Last year, 4,292 kidney patients, 1,425 liver patients, 301 heart patients and 228 lung patients died waiting.
Donor organs are matched to patients on the waiting list through a national computer registry, called the National Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN). This is operated by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). Visit www.unos.org
END THE WAIT!
The National Kidney Foundation (NKF) recently unveiled a bold new initiative called “End the Wait!” Currently, more than102,978 people are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant in the United States. In the past decade, the nationwide organ shortage has become so severe that approximately every two hours someone dies while waiting for a kidney.
In response to this ongoing crisis, the NKF developed a “roadmap” of action steps that address current financial, medical practice, educational and legislative issues that have been identified as barriers to obtaining a kidney transplant. The END THE WAIT campaign moves to decrease the number of candidates waiting for a transplant, increase the number of donations, and make donation and transplantation easier safer, and more effective. Many of the recommendations will also have a positive impact on waiting times for other organs. “Most of the people on the current waiting list for a kidney will wait too long, and many will die while waiting,” said John Davis, NKF’s Chief Executive Officer. “NKF wants to be the catalyst to meeting this challenge head-on and lead a broad-based initiative that will eliminate barriers to donation, institute best practices across the country, cover the cost of donation and increase the pool of living and deceased donors.”
Some of the proposed actions include:
Extending Medicare coverage of immunosuppressant medication
Coverage of all costs related to organ donation
Provision of state-of-the-art medical care to ensure the fastest recovery possible for living organ donors
Elimination of racial and regional inequalities in the quality of transplant treatment and care
This plan is meant to be a collaborative effort on the part of many organizations. It is a call to action for transplant programs, organ procurement organizations, professional societies, government agencies, patient organizations and the government.
Implementation of the effort has already begun with the introduction of related legislation in Washington, D.C. The ultimate goal is to end the wait for kidney transplants in 10 years. Read more about how you can get involved with End the Wait! at www.kidney.org/endthewait
National Kidney Foundation U.S. Transplant Games®
The Games is the largest gathering of transplant recipients and donor families in the world.
Held every other year, children and adults of all ages who have received a life-saving organ transplant participate in one or more events offered in 12+ sports.
Living donors and donor family members participate in recognition ceremonies and other special events.
When it's time to renew your registration, consider getting a new Donate Life license plate. $25 from each plate sold will be donated to help Donate Life Wisconsin promote donation awareness throughout our state.
