PDS CARES has selected Lifeline of Ohio as the 30 Years, 30 Gifts recipient this week, nominated by a friend of PDS, Suzanne Ryan Hoyt, and PDS employee, Susi Johnson. Suzanne and Susi both support Lifeline of Ohio for their tireless effort in the promotion of organ, eye and tissue donation registration in the State of Ohio. Donate Life!
Directly from Lifeline of Ohio’s website – The Gift of Life: Why Organ and Tissue Donation? Once every 48 hours, an Ohioan dies waiting. In the last 10 years, more than 2,000 Ohioans have died waiting for a transplant. The need for registered organ, eye and tissue donors is urgent.
As transplantation of hearts, kidneys, lungs, pancreas and livers has emerged as the preferred and most successful treatment of many life-threatening diseases, the need for these life-saving gifts has increased. Today there are more than 123,000 Americans on the transplant waiting list, with more than 3,300 waiting at one of ten transplant centers in Ohio.
Unlike other medical afflictions, there is no need to race for a cure for these individuals. The cure exists, and it depends on the generous decision of one person to share life at the end of life. It is simply people helping people.
The importance of registering your decision to donate is critical because the opportunity to donate is so rare. In 2014, 325 Ohioans donated organs at the time of their death. Their Gift of Life resulted in 1,074 life-saving transplants. If that number seems small, it is because organ donation occurs primarily when a person dies on a ventilator. This occurs in less than one percent of all deaths.
The wait for a transplant is unique to every individual. Some wait years. Some wait months. In rare cases, lucky people wait only days or weeks for a call that says the needed organ is available. In all cases having your name on the transplant waiting list puts your future in the hands of a stranger.
To learn more about Lifeline of Ohio please visit: http://lifelineofohio.org/
PDS CARES “30 Years, 30 Gifts” is a charitable gifting program which will make donations to thirty 501(c)(3) charities in 2015 in celebration of PDS Planning, Inc’s 30th year anniversary.