April is National Donate Life Month
April 7, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) – National Donate Life Month, which is also known as NDLM, was started and instituted in 2003 by Donate Life America and its partnering organizations. NDLM is celebrated every year in April and there are local, regional and national activities which help encourage Americans to register to become someone who will become an organ, eye and tissue donor. This also gives time to celebrate the lives of those who have saved lives by being a donor.
For the 2015 National Donate Life Month artwork, spring showers and the symbol of an umbrella inspired the Donate Life America team. This whimsical depiction is meant to call to mind how we each have an opportunity to play the role of the umbrella, or person holding it, for others in need.
Donation and the Donate Life umbrella, provide hope, strength and LIFE. Registered donors offer hope to those waiting. Recipients inspire strength. Donors give new life. Under the Donate Life umbrella, we find comfort. And the rain brings new growth.
There have been over 24,000 patients who have been able to begin new lives in 2014 because of donor transplants, that is about 65 people a day.
Nearly 124,000 people in the United States are currently waiting for an organ transplant. Yet there are more than 1,000 of those people are 10-years-old or younger. About 58% of patients awaiting lifesaving transplants are minorities. While on average, 150 people are added to the nation’s organ transplant waiting list each day. Approximately one every 10 minutes. Sadly, on average, 21 people die each day because the organs they need are not donated in time.
A living donor has the ability to save a life by donating a kidney or a portion of their liver, lung, pancreas or intestine. More than one third of all deceased donors are age 50 or older; nearly 8% are age 65 or older.
There are approximately 30,000 tissue donors and more than 1 million tissue transplants performed each year; the surgical need for tissue is rising steadily. The amazing thing though is that one single tissue donor can save or heal up to 50 people.
On average, nearly 50,000 patients have their sight restored through a corneal transplants each year.
More than 121 million people, which is approximately 50% of the U.S. adult population, are registered organ, eye and tissue donors. To register as a lifesaving and healing donor please visit www.DonateLife.net
