In addition to caring for our individual selves, we can help improve the overall health of our entire community. If we make the effort to educate ourselves about donating vital substances while living (blood, bone marrow) and vital tissues upon our ascension- our collective health will improve many times over. Check out the information from our Health Channel Sponsor The California Transplant Donor Network...and improve the health of an entire community!
Improve
Our Collective Health
Do You Know Someone Who Needs an Organ Transplant?
Did you know that over 95,000 men, women, and children are waiting for a life-saving transplant and 35 percent of all patients waiting for a kidney transplant are African-American? For minorities, the shortage in organ donation is particularly significant. Some diseases of the kidney, heart, lung, pancreas and liver are found more frequently in racial and ethnic minority populations than in the general population. For example, African-Americans are three times more likely to suffer from end-stage renal disease than Whites. Some of these diseases are best treated through transplantation.
Facts about Donation
Profile: Saving a 20 month old baby
Profile: Needing a Kidney at 27
Join Us at The Transplant Network
Different racial and ethnic groups face unique challenges when it comes to organ transplantation. Generally, people are genetically more similar to people of their own ethnicity or race than to people of other races. Consequently, if minorities don’t donate, longer waiting lists for transplantation result. On the other hand, when more minorities choose to become organ donors, the direct result is more lives saved in those communities.
Each one of us has the power to save as many as eight lives as an organ donor and improve 50 more through tissue donation. Simply check “YES” I want to be an organ and tissue donor when you apply for or renew your driver license or ID card through the DMV. Alternatively, you can sign-up at www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org. Either way, your name will be added to the Donate Life California Registry, assuring your wish to save lives will be honored.