Tissue donations down
from last year

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By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com

Organ donations in Hawaii have slipped this year while more than 300 patients are waiting for lifesaving transplants.

Figures compiled by the Organ Donor Center of Hawaii show 21 organ donors and 48 organ donations as of Nov. 9 this year, compared with 20 donors and 53 organs donated in the same period last year.

Tissue donors this year totaled 31 for bone, 23 heart valves and 37 eyes. Donations last year included 47 for bone, 17 heart valves and 70 eyes.

Physicians at St. Francis Medical Center have done 48 transplants so far this year: 27 with kidneys from cadavers, four with living related kidneys, six with living nonrelated kidneys, eight with livers, one for a heart and two for a pancreas.

On the waiting list, according to the hospital, are three patients for hearts, 316 for kidneys, 20 for livers, two for a pancreas and three for a kidney and pancreas.

Although donations have been a little slower this year, said Robyn Kaufman, Organ Donor Center director, "I don't think it's significant."

She expects the year to end with a total of 24 or 25 organ donors. When the program began in 1987, it averaged 12 to 14 donors annually, she said.

Starting in 1999, she said, the program has exceeded 20 donors annually, and the trend is continuing.

She believes tissue donations are down because of implementation of 1998 Medicare regulations that prevent hospital staff from approaching families about organ, tissue and eye donations unless they are certified by the organ procurement organization.

The center began training hospital staff this year as "designated requesters" certified to talk to families about tissue donation, she said.

More than 50 nurses, social workers, chaplains and other hospital employees have been specially trained and certified, she said. "The value of their role is their history with the family."

She said the Organ Donor Center is collaborating with the Hawaii Lions Eye Bank and Makana Foundation on designator requester training to increase tissue donations.

She said they are focusing on building the tissue program because "more people are medically suitable to be tissue donors. It gives us the option to offer more families (tissue)."

For more information about organ donations, call 599-7630.