With more than 117,000 people nationwide waiting for a life-saving organ transplant — including more than 2,200 Marylanders — the need for designated organ, eye and tissue donors has reached an all-time high. Sadly, on average, 18 people on the national waiting list die every day due to the lack of available organs for transplant.
To help create awareness of this growing healthcare crisis, Shore Health University of Maryland Medical System has partnered with The Living Legacy Foundation of Maryland (LLF) to provide employees and members of our community information about the importance of organ, eye and tissue donation. All Shore Health System hospitals, including Memorial Hospital at Easton, Dorchester General Hospital and Queen Anne’s Emergency Center, have established a strong relationship with LLF, a federally designated organ procurement organization dedicated to saving lives by facilitating the process of organ and tissue donation, recovery and transplantation. We are proud of the lifesaving efforts achieved through our support of and commitment to organ and tissue donation.
Statewide, 52 percent of Marylanders have formally designated their decisions to donate life through the Maryland Donor Registry. The counties served by the Shore Health system fall a bit short of the statewide average, as follows: Caroline, 41 percent; Dorchester, 40 percent; Kent, 46 percent: and, Queen Anne’s and Talbot, both 49 percent. Because April is “National Donate Life Month,” Shore Health System and The Living Legacy Foundation now urge health care professionals, volunteers, educators, community groups, private organizations and the public at large to celebrate the tremendous generosity of those who have saved lives by becoming organ, eye and tissue donors.
As a community, we should be proud that over the past few years, with the cooperation of Shore Health staff and The Living Legacy Foundation, a number of our local citizens who had decided to be designated donors were able to give the gift of life. Thanks to their generosity and thoughtful planning, these donors are heroes — heroes who have enabled others to have a second chance to live, play, work, and love. But this month and every month, we can do more to “donate life,” here in the Mid-Shore community and throughout Maryland, by closing the gap between the number of designated donors and the hundreds of patients waiting for a life-saving organ transplant or a life-enhancing tissue transplant. There is an urgent need for more donations of life-saving organs and tissue.
For more information on organ, eye and tissue donation, please visit the Donate Life Maryland website at www.donatelifemaryland.org or call 866-MD-DONOR.
By Jennifer Gelman, Director of Communications, The Living Legacy Foundation, Karen Kennedy RN, BSN, Organizational Trainer and Special Projects, The Living Legacy Foundation
and Brian H. Childs, Ph.D., Director of Ethics and Spiritual Care, Shore Health University of Maryland Medical System