Organ Donation Saves Lives and Can Help Families Deal with Grief

End-of-life issues can be difficult to discuss, especially when you are young and healthy. Signing up for the national organ donor registry is an easy way to make your wishes known.

“It is important to talk about organ donation and end-of-life wishes with loved ones so your family understands what you want if you are unable to speak and make decisions for yourself,” says Terri Long, RN, director of Critical Care and Cardiology Services at Penn Medicine Doylestown Health. You can join the national organ donor registry online or choose the option on your driver’s license. A living will or advance directive is another way to communicate your intentions. Everyone is a potential organ donor — regardless of age, race, or medical history. Your medical condition when you pass away determines which tissues and organs you can donate.

A choice to save others

In our region, the Gift of Life Donor Program oversees the delicate process that allows us to gift our organs. They verify donor registration and approach families about the possibility of organ donation.

“Even as families endure the loss of a loved one, they recognize and often take comfort in the fact that something good can come out of the worst thing that can ever happen,” says Maggie Ainslie, director of Pastoral Care.

“When someone on the organ waiting list receives the call, they know that someone is dying and their family is grieving. It is a poignant and delicate situation,” says Maggie.

One organ donor can save up to eight lives. A tissue donor can help improve the quality of life of 100 others, according to Gift of Life.

Facts about organ donation

The following statistics, “Some important facts about organ, tissue, and cornea donation” from Gift of Life illustrate the need for organ donation education and registration:

• Anyone can be a potential donor regardless of age, race, or medical history.
• About 5,000 children and adults in the region await life-saving organ transplants. Thousands of others could benefit from life-enhancing tissue transplants.
• With more than 90,000 people across the nation awaiting a kidney, it is the organ in greatest demand, followed by liver, heart, and lungs.
• Because conditions such as diabetes and hypertension are often more prevalent in the multicultural community, these individuals make up 60 percent of those on the national organ transplant list.

The lead up to the donation

Most organ donor patients are very ill, so they tend to be in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). 

“The lead up to the donation is very intense,” says Bobbie Kim, RN, clinical manager of Doylestown Hospital’s ICU, Intermediate Unit, and Neurology Services. Organ donation is only permitted after all efforts to save the person’s life have been exhausted. Tests are done to confirm that there is no brain or brainstem activity. 

“If a donor patient is declared brain dead, the process can begin,” explains Bobbie. "If the patient has no hope for neurologic recovery, but is not brain dead, there is an option called Donation After Cardiac Death (DCD). With DCD, the patient is taken off of ventilated support and, if they naturally expire within 90 minutes, the donation process can commence. If they do not expire within that timeframe then they are determined to be unsuitable for donation.” 
 
“The donor patient receives one-to-one nursing care throughout the process,” explains Bobbie. In addition to caring for the donor, the team follows protocols to ensure the donated organs are as healthy as possible for the sake of people deeply in need.

A nationwide program links potential organ donors to people waiting for lifesaving transplants, according to Bobbie. The decision is based on criteria such as blood type, body size, medical condition, donor location, tissue type, and how long the person has been waiting.

Support for loved ones

Our Pastoral Care team routinely visits patients and families throughout the hospital, including the ICU. “We believe people are connected emotionally, physically, and spiritually,” says Maggie. “In the hospital, while everyone else handles the physical part, we get to help with emotional and spiritual support. We are a holistic department that responds to whatever people are asking for outside of the medical realm.”

The honor walk

When all of the arrangements are in place, it is time to transfer the donor patient to the operating room where organs will be recovered. 

At Doylestown Hospital, a donor’s loved ones may choose to participate in an honor walk. “The honor walk can be an important part of the grieving process,” says Maggie. “It is a way to honor the donor and recognize the significance of this selfless choice that will change the lives of others,” she adds.

The hospital staff line the walls and the family walks behind the stretcher during as the team takes the donor patient to the operating room where a team of surgeons will recover the organs. “The honor walk is impactful and very emotional and underscores just how precious the whole system is — from the donation to the organ recipient,” says Maggie. 

More about organ donation

If circumstances do not allow for organs to be donated, tissue donation is often possible. And, not all donated organs, eyes, and tissues are usable for transplant. With permission, those donations can support medical research and education. Organs and tissues that can be transplanted include the following:

Organs

• Heart
• Kidneys
• Liver
• Lungs
• Pancreas
• Intestines

Tissues

• Eyes/corneas
• Heart valves
• Bone and associated tissue
• Skin
• Veins and arteries
• Nerves

Sign Up to Save Lives: Be an Organ Donor

Gift of Life Donor Program, founded in 1974 and headquartered in Philadelphia, is the federally designated organ procurement organization (OPO) for the eastern half of Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware serving 11.3 million people. It works with 124 acute care hospitals and 12 transplant centers in its region, as well as hundreds of transplant centers throughout the country, to provide the most comprehensive array of services available in the U.S. to the donation and transplantation community. Thanks to the generosity of its community, Gift of Life has coordinated 14,860 donors and 41,140 organs for transplant, the most of any OPO in the country since the inception of our national donation system in 1988. Overall, Gift of Life has coordinated more than 62,000 organs and more than two million tissue transplants since its founding. One organ donor can save the lives of up to eight people and a tissue donor can improve the lives of 100 others. In honor of its 50 years of saving lives, Gift of Life is rallying the community to sign up 50,000 more organ donors and provide hope to the thousands waiting for a transplant. Learn more and sign up at donors1.org.