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Organ donation a legacy for donors’ kin, a second chance at life for recipients | The Homepage
- jmartinez5135
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
By Managing Editor Juliet Martinez
Donating an organ or tissue is the ultimate gift. One organ and tissue donor can save or enhance up to 75 lives. But throughout Allegheny County, a lot of families say “no” when a loved one has died and could become an organ donor.
Feb. 14 is National Donor Day. It is a day to promote awareness about all types of organ and tissue donation. In the U.S., more than 100,000 people are waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant. More than 250,000 people are waiting for tissue and cornea transplants. Every day, patients die because they did not get the transplant they needed.
Every year, roughly 11,000 people die who could be organ donors, but only a fraction of them actually donate, according to the CORE, the Center for Organ Recovery and Education.
CORE is the organ procurement organization that serves western Pennsylvania, most of West Virginia and one New York county. A federally-designated nonprofit, the organization coordinates the recovery and matching of organs, tissues and corneas in this region.
The organization’s mission is to “save and heal lives through donation, ultimately ending the deaths of those on the transplant waiting list, while maintaining integrity for the donation process, dignity for the donors, and compassion for their families.”
Life after saying “yes”
Marilyn Reynolds works for CORE as the nonprofit’s multicultural outreach coordinator. But her experience with organ donation goes much deeper than her job. Her father died unexpectedly and became an organ donor in 2017.
“Every day when I do this work and I talk to individuals, you know, it’s important to share that it wasn’t an easy ‘yes’ for me because my father, he wasn’t designated when he passed,” she said. “And so as next of kin, I had to make the decision.”
Families who allow their loved one to become a donor receive 13 months of grief support from CORE. They can also get updates and even letters from the people who received the gift of donated tissue or organs.
Ms. Reynolds has received letters from three people who got bone grafts that her father donated. As recently as last year, she found out that her father’s donation has helped many people who needed skin grafts, some of whom are in other countries.
“He has been able to help heal over 80 people just through this one act of donation,” she said. “And the skin grafts have gone all over. He’s over in Greece somewhere helping someone, you know, so it’s just an amazing, an amazing experience.”
She has one regret, though.
“I wish that I would have had this conversation with my father well before, you know, to know what his wishes would have been so that I didn’t have to make such a heavy, important decision at that time,” she said. “But I’m so glad that I did because he was able to help heal so many people. And that’s just the type of person he was in general. He loved to help people.”
Does race matter?
Ms. Reynolds’ father’s gifts had to be matched with the right recipients.
Matching a transplant recipient with a donor is complicated. Katelynn Metz is a spokesperson for CORE. She compared the matching process to a combination lock. Each person has a unique genetic “combination” that allows their body to tell the difference between itself and invaders like viruses, for example. When the donor’s “combination” matches at least half of the recipient’s, the transplant is likely to be successful.
There are many possible combinations. The more related two people are, the more similar theirs will be. A patient’s parents and siblings are most likely to match with them. For this reason, sometimes a living donor can give a kidney or a lobe of their liver to a relative who needs a transplant.
Race alone is not a factor for matching a donor with a recipient. But people who share the patient’s racial or ethnic background are more likely to be a match with them. This is one reason for Ms. Reynolds’ work with CORE. She works to promote healthy choices that prevent organ failure, and she encourages people of color to become organ donors.
Ms. Reynolds said 60% of people waiting on a transplant are people of color. But they are not well represented on donor registries.
The main reason she sees is mistrust in the medical system. People fear that if they register as a donor and are severely injured, doctors or EMTs will not try to save their lives, she said. But this is not accurate.
“The hospital’s only focus is to work on saving your life,” Ms. Reynolds said. CORE gets involved only after the patient brain is dead.
Brain death is when a series of tests show that brain activity has stopped completely. After a patient is declared brain dead, social workers from CORE approach the next of kin about organ donation. People who die outside of a hospital are not eligible to donate their organs.
If the deceased person’s family agrees, CORE conducts testing to find a match on the transplant waiting list. The organization then manages the donation. They hand off the recovered organs or tissues to transplant teams for the recipients who will benefit most from them.
Myth vs. reality
Other misconceptions stand in the way of more people becoming organ donors.
Ms. Metz said some people fear that they or their loved one will be mutilated after death, that it will delay the funeral or they won’t be able to have an open casket.
“You could have an open casket,” Ms. Metz said. “No one would know.” She added that the organ or tissue recovery usually happens before the loved one’s body is taken to the funeral home.
Some people believe their religion prohibits organ donation. Ms. Metz said she is not aware of a major religion that does, but encourages people to talk to their religious advisors.
Another myth is that people with chronic health conditions cannot donate their organs. This is not true.
Ms. Metz said people with diabetes and even AIDS have donated organs.
“We had an organ donor who was 95 years old, three years ago,” she said. “He is the oldest organ donor in U.S. history. ... He was a World War 2 veteran, a coal miner from West Virginia, and he donated his liver, and his recipient is doing great. She lives in Florida, and she’s doing great.”
Other myths include believing that celebrities or wealthy people can “cut the line” for organ transplants. In fact, no names or other identifying information is used on the transplant lists. Some people think that the patients waiting for transplants ruined their organs and don’t deserve new ones. This is also false; most people waiting for organ transplants did nothing to harm themselves. Only about 5% of people waiting for transplants have an illness caused by substance use. They have to abstain long-term in order to receive a transplant.
Ms. Metz said even her 80-year-old stepfather told her, “No one would want my organs.” She urged him to let the doctors decide if he could donate or not, especially because he is Asian. Donor registries need more Asians and members of other minority groups. Most people waiting for an organ would be happy to get one even if it does not come from a young, energetic donor.
“At the end of the day, you know, people really are in such desperate need,” she said. “Most people just want a chance for tomorrow.”
To learn more and register as an organ donor, visit core.org/register. For more information on the importance of donation in communities of color, visit core.org/community/community-education/multicultural. For more information on the importance of donation in communities of color, visit core.org/community/community-education/multicultural.