OK here is something close to my heart (um, pardon the pun!) – organ donation!
Would you believe that apparently, up to 90% of the UK population support organ donation but only 24% have joined the NHS Organ Donor Register – I guess most of us would say its simply something we haven’t got round to doing.
You may have seen that the latest major campaign aims to make it even easier for people to give the gift of life - over 11.6 million
Consider this:
- 3,086 organ transplants were carried out, thanks to the generosity of 1,495 donors.
- 949 lives were saved in the
- A total of 2,137 patients received a kidney, pancreas or combined kidney/pancreas transplant.
- A further 2,402 people had their sight restored through a cornea transplant.
- A record number of non-heart beating donor kidney transplants took place and accounted for one in seven of all kidney transplants.
- The highest number of combined kidney/pancreas transplants took place (164, representing a 53% increase on 2005-2006).
- Living donor kidney transplants are increasing - 461 in 2003-2004, 475 in 2004-2005, 589 in 2005-2006, and 690 in 2006-2007, and now represent more than one in four of all kidney transplants.
- At the end of March 2007, 7,234 patients were listed as actively waiting for a transplant.
- Almost a million more people pledged to help others after their death by registering their wishes on the NHS Organ Donor Register, bringing the total at 31 March 2007 to 14,201,229.
So if you’ve been thinking about it but not yet done anything, don’t wait for the postman to deliver the leaflet! Can I urge you to:
Just DO IT!
Click here and Register – its ‘easy peasy’ and who knows, you could be taking the first step to give the precious gift of life to someone!
