Hello nkamom,
It?s pretty amazing just how many organs and tissues can be
transplanted! Heart, liver, pancreas, kidneys, lung, heart valves,
bone marrow, intestines, corneas, bone, connective tissue and skin can
all be transplanted! Every 14 minutes a person is added to the organ
transplant waiting list, and 17 people a day die, while waiting for a
suitable and compatible organ. Donating a loved one?s organs can be
very rewarding and even consoling to the donor?s family. Most
organized religions support organ donation, including Roman
Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism.
You can read various religious statements on organ transplant here:
http://www.redcross.org/donate/tissue/relgstmt.html
The transplantation process goes along in this manner:
When someone dies, or is deemed brain-dead, the hospital staff will
notify the family and inquire about organ donation. Sometimes the
plans have been previously discussed, and the family and staff are
prepared. Surgeons will remove the organs and place them in a normal
saline solution, on ice while the organ procurement team is notified.
These are organizations that have technicians on call around the
clock. (See a list in the next paragraph). If only skin or eyes are
donated, a technician will enucleate the donor (remove the eyes) or
collect a skin sample, without the need of a surgeon. Many times the
organ procurement staff will collect the most recent blood samples
from the laboratory for testing as well.
The organs are transported to the procurement facility for testing and
matching and the data is entered into the computer database.
Once the organs are grouped, typed and deemed suitable for
transplantation and the data entered, it is compared to the ?Master
list? on the UNOS computer network, of people awaiting an organ.(More
on UNOS below) ?For each organ that becomes available, the computer
program generates a list of potential recipients ranked according to
objective criteria (i.e. blood type, tissue type, size of the organ,
medical urgency of the patient, time on the waiting list, and distance
between donor and recipient). Each organ has its own specific
criteria. Ethnicity, gender, religion, and financial status are not
part of the computer matching system.? The procuring agency contacts
the surgeon of the ?top-rated? patient, one who matches the criteria.
The recipient?s surgeon then decides if the patient is in a condition
to accept the organ. If so, the patient and surgical teams are
notified and the transplantation surgery takes place. In the case of a
recipient being unable to accept the organ, the next on the list is
notified.
?The recovered organs are stored in a cold organ preservation solution
and transported from the donor to the recipient hospital. For heart
and lung recipients, it is best to transplant the organ within six
hours of organ recovery. Livers can be preserved up to 24 hours after
recovery. For kidneys and typically the pancreas, laboratory tests
designed to measure the compatibility between the donor organ and
recipient are performed. A surgeon will not accept the organ if these
tests show that the patient's immune system will reject the organ.
Therefore, the recipient is usually not identified until after these
organs are recovered.?
http://www.optn.org/about/transplantation/matchingProcess.asp
http://www.donor.co.nz/what_f_b.html
Organ Procurement Organizations:
?OPOs employ highly trained professionals called procurement
coordinators who carry out the organization's mission. Once contacted
by the hospital with a potential donor, OPO staff:
·conduct a thorough medical and social history of the potential donor
to help determine the suitability of organs for transplantation
·work with hospital staff to offer the option of donation to the donor family
·ensure that the decision to donate is based on informed consent
·manage the clinical care of the donor once consent for donation is finalized
·enter the donor information into the UNOS computer to find a match
for the donated organs
·coordinate the organ recovery process with the surgical teams and
provide follow-up information to the donor family and involved
hospital staff regarding the outcome of the donations
From the moment of consent for donation to the release of the donor's
body to the morgue, all costs associated with the organ donation
process are billed directly to the OPO.
http://www.optn.org/about/transplantation/matchingProcess.asp
In the US and Puerto Rico, there exists 59 organ procurement
organizations. All of them are listed on this site.
http://www.organdonor.gov/opo.htm
For the transplant recipient:
1.If you need an organ transplant, your health care provider will help
you get on the national waiting list.
2.To get on the waiting list, you need to visit a transplant hospital.
3.A doctor will evaluate you and decide if you meet the criteria to be
put on the list. You also can get on the waiting list at more than one
transplant hospital. Each hospital has its own criteria for listing
patients. If you meet their criteria, they will add you to the list.
4.You wait. There is no way to know how long you will wait to receive
a donor organ.
5.Your name will be added to a pool of names. When an organ donor
becomes available, all the patients in the pool are compared to that
donor. Factors such as blood type, tissue type, size of the organ,
medical urgency of the patient's illness, time already spent on the
waiting list, and distance between donor and recipient are considered.
The organ is offered first to the candidate who is the best match. The
organs are distributed locally first, and if no match is found, they
are offered regionally and then nationally until a recipient is found.
For the donor and family:
·State your intent to be an organ donor on your driver's license.
·Fill out a donor card and carry it in your wallet. You can download
and print an organ donor card at www.organdonor.gov/newdonorcard.pdf
·Tell your family and loved ones that you want to be a donor after you die.
·You may also want to tell your family health care provider, lawyer,
and your religious leader that you would like to be a donor.
http://www.4woman.gov/faq/organ_donation.htm
The donor?s family is not charged for any donation expenses
http://www.4woman.gov/faq/organ_donation.htm#7
UNOS, United Network for Organ Sharing, developed the online database
for storing all organ transplant information in the US. This
database, called UNet, contains information on *every* organ donation
and organ transplant that has taken place in the US since sometime in
1986. The computers than hold this data are completely secure and
failsafe (meaning they are mirrored and backed up continuously)
Some of the data stored is:
·register patients for transplants
·match donated organs to waiting patients
·manage the time-sensitive, life-critical data of all patients, before
and after their transplants
?UNet is being used right now by all of the nation's organ transplant
programs, organ procurement organizations, and histocompatibility
(tissue typing) laboratories working cooperatively to efficiently
share a limited number of donated organs among thousands of patients.?
http://www.unos.org/data/
It would be redundant, as well as breaking copyright to paste all the
information found on this excellent site. Instead, I am providing
valuable links for pertinent information on the UNOS site:
This page discusses the kinds of data collected:
http://www.unos.org/data/about/collection.asp
Technology of Organ Donation:
http://www.unos.org/whatWeDo/technology.asp
Master List and Matching Donors to recipients:
One donor can make a difference to more than one recipient!
Transplants January - March 2004 6,542 as of 06/25/2004
Donors January - March 2004 3,422 as of 06/25/2004
http://www.unos.org/
Additional Information:
Lifegift has a well done, simple overview of the organ donor process on this page:
http://www.lifegift.org/UD_Organ_Donation.html
See job postings on the NATCO site to get an idea of current job openings.
http://www.natco1.org/jobs.asp
In case you are interested in becoming a donor, click your state on the map:
http://www.donatelife.net/
Department of Health and Human Services FAQs
http://www.organdonor.gov/faq.html#5
Organ Transplantaion in Georgia
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?path=/ScienceMedicine/Medicine/ResearchandPublicHealth&id=h-2666
UNOS Liver transplantaion process
http://www.livertransplant.org/patientguide/unos.html
I hope this has answered your question adequately! If any part of my
answer is unclear, please request an Answer Clarification, before
rating. This will allow me to assist you further, if possible.
Regards,
crabcakes
Search terms
Familiarity with UNOS, and the Donor Network of AZ
organ donor network
matching donor organs to recipients |
