April is Donate Life Month and serves as a reminder to the public to register to be an organ and tissue donor. Seventeen people in the United States die each day waiting for a life-saving organ transplant. One donor can save the lives of up to 8 people through organ donation and heal and enhance the lives of more than 300 through tissue and eye donation.
Bev Larson-Needham of Waukon is here today thanks to an organ donor. She received both the liver and kidney of the same donor and five years later, is living a normal, healthy life with no side effects. She encourages everyone to register to be not only an organ donor upon death, but also a living organ donor.
“There is such an urgent need for organ donors. Six-thousand people alone died last year, waiting,” explains Bev. “Many people don’t realize they can also register to be a living donor, giving a donation of a kidney, part of a liver, a lobe of a lung, parts of their pancreas, skin, bone marrow, and of course, blood.”
According to the Iowa Donor Network, in 2022, many lives were transformed through organ and tissue donation in Iowa. 115 organ donors generously gave 341 organs for transplant. Thousands more lives were healed by the gifts of 979 tissue donors in Iowa. Still, there are more than 105,000 people in the United States waiting for the call to receive a life-saving organ transplant, including 600 Iowans.
Only 58% of Americans age 18 and older are registered donors. The easiest way to register is to go to www.iowadonornetwork.org and click on the link to sign up to become a donor. Anyone can also say ‘yes’ to becoming a donor when they receive or renew their driver’s license, or when purchasing a hunting, fishing or fur harvester license through the Department of Natural Resources.
“If you have already decided to be a donor, thank you,” adds Bev. “If you are considering becoming a donor, I encourage you to do so. It will be a difference of life or death—it was for me!”
