SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. –There are currently 500 West Virginians waiting for a life-saving organ transplant, and WVU Medicine Thomas Hospitals is stepping up to help change that by emphasizing the importance of donation.
Nurses and officials with the hospital held a call to action on Friday to help encourage people to register as an organ donor.
Susan Garrett, a Registered Nurse and Clinical Coordinator of Critical Care Services, said that while registering as a donor is important, it’s equally crucial to have these difficult conversations with family members.
“When it comes to end of life care that’s one less burden that your family will have to deal with and speaking of wishes and what you can is a difficult subject but at the same time it’s one that still needs to be had,” Garrett said.
She noted that the significance of the date is to symbolize how one person’s decision to become a donor can save up to eight lives.
Jennifer Bair was 10 years old in 2014 when her father suffered a traumatic event that took his life, prompting the family to make the difficult decision of whether or not to donate his organs.
Today, Bair is an ICU nurse at WVU Medicine, where she helps families facing end-of-life care make the same difficult decisions her own family once faced.
She said that watching her family go through the process of deciding whether to donate her dad’s organs is what inspired her to become a critical care nurse.
“I’ve always wanted to be in healthcare, and I’ve always wanted to be a nurse but definitely being in critical care and getting to work side-by-side with families going through end-of-life care, getting to see if they get to choose organ donation or just care, it’s really great to see the impact,” Bair said.
She noted that they donated his kidney’s, cornea’s, tissue and tendon’s.
Garrett, who has been a nurse for 11 years, said it’s been rewarding to witness the life-changing impact organ donation can have on patients.
“One person specifically off the top of my head that has lived almost an additional 20 years with organ donation so the ability for that person to live on is absolutely fantastic,” she said.
She added that another reason they’re encouraging people to become donors is to remind them that organ donation goes beyond just the heart, kidneys, or liver.
“It also includes your cornea which is your eyes, and then tissues whether it be a burn victim or somebody who was like our CNO today, I can’t remember exactly which disease she has but she was able to receive her gift of sight back,”
Those wishing to register to be an organ donor can go to DonateLifeWV or when you’re renewing your driver’s license at a DMV.