DONOR AWARENESS WEEK BEGINS TODAY

Officials involved in organ and tissue donation are asking families this week to talk about donation and to sign and witness their driver's licenses.

National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week, which starts today, is designed to promote public information on the need for organ and tissue donation and how one can become a donor.

Cheri Huckstep Reed, patient care manager of ICU at St. Francis Medical Center, helps coordinate organ donation efforts for the hospital.

"The most important thing for people to do is talk about organ donation now," Reed said. "It's so hard for families when they are upset because someone has just died. Then we ask them if they would like to think about donating. Many times they say we never talked about it."

Despite record high organ and tissue procurement last year, the need for donated organs and tissue is greater than ever, said Dean Kappel, president and CEO of Mid-America Transplant Association.

Mid-America Transplant Association is based in St. Louis and coordinates the procurement of all vital organs throughout Missouri, southern Illinois and northeastern Arkansas. A subsidiary, the Mid-American Eye and Tissue Bank, procures bone, heart valves, saphenous vein, and eyes for transplant.

"In 1991, we procured 266 vital organs from 80 local donors and imported another 119 organs from donors outside our region," Kappel said. "But at the same time, the waiting list to receive these lifesaving organs increased by 50 percent. There are now 484 on our local waiting list and 25,000 nationwide."

The supply of donated organs continues to fall short of demand. As a result, one man, woman or child dies every six hours in the U.S. while waiting for a suitable matching organ to become available.

In Cape Girardeau, Reed said, the number of organ donors remains constant. "But we have about the same number of potential donors all the time."

A big part of Reed's job is public awareness for the program and education about organ donation and transplantation.

"I think people know that transplantation is not experimental and it really works. Everybody knows somebody who has had a transplant."

Reed said cornea transplants are done at both Cape Girardeau hospitals.

And some donor bone materials are used in orthopedic and neuro-surgery locally. "Many people may be getting these transplants and don't even know it," Reed said.

"Organ transplants are only done in major medical centers, which is how is should be. They do this every day," she said.

Kappel said: "Because transplant surgery has become so routine and so successful, more and more people are being evaluated as transplant candidates and being placed on waiting lists. There is no question that the overwhelming majority of organ transplant recipients are able to resume a normal, productive life shortly after surgery."

Reed said the benefits to recipients is evident. They have a second chance at a normal life.

"What most people don't see is the big benefit donating organs gives to the donor families. Most of the time these are cases of something tragic: a young person murdered or killed in an accident.

"Organ donation really gives the family a choice when they have no choice and control when things are out of control," Reed said. "Many times it's the only way they can get something positive out of a death. It's a way of that person living on."

As part of the week's activities in Cape Girardeau the fifth annual Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week Walk will be held Tuesday. The walk starts at 6 p.m. at KFVS, Broadway and Lorimier, and finishes at the Downtown Pavilion.

"We've invited a lot of recipients and donor families, too," Reed said. "And every year they come."

Anyone interested may join the walk.

At the end of the walk, a short presentation will be given, refreshments served and attendance prizes awarded.

"Every year the walk gets a little bigger," Reed said. "Last year we had over 100. This year our goal is 150 people."