Pitt Memorial transplant center

W. TERRY SMITH

Everybody knows that Feb. 14 is Valentine’s Day, but did you know it’s also National Donor Day?

That’s the word Carolina Donor Services is trying to get out this week. There is an overwhelming need for organ donors. In North Carolina, more than 3,200 people are currently waiting for an organ transplant. Nationally, 105,352 people are on the organ waiting list. One person has the ability to save eight lives through organ donation and enhance more than 50 lives through tissue donation.

Pitt County Memorial Hospital in Greenville, part of the University Health Systems that includes Heritage Hospital in Tarboro, is the transplant center in Eastern North Carolina. Last year, Pitt harvested 109 organs and 90 were transplanted, including 38 kidney transplants from living and deceased donors.

“It’s very rewarding work,” said Carrie Simpkins, a registered nurse who has worked 17 years in the transplant program and the last 10 as the transplant coordinator at Pitt.

Simpkins and the staff take advantage of every opportunity to go into the community and inform people of the importance of organ donations. They speak to civic clubs. They are at high school football games. Last Thanksgiving they were at Colonial Mall.

“We are glad to talk to anyone,” Simpkins said.

When an injured person comes into Pitt with a heart on their driver’s license or registered information, Carolina Donor Services is notified. If they do not have a heart on their license, Carolina Donor Services is notified, and it sends someone to the hospital.

Organ donation is encouraged, but no one is ever forced to donate.

If there is a willing donor at the hospital, a team of doctors and nurses is dispatched to harvest the organs.

Organs that may be donated include heart, kidneys, lungs, liver, pancreas, intestines, tissue and bone grafts, and cornea.

“Unless you are affected, most people do not understand how important (organ donation) is,” Simpkins said. “You have the ability to give someone a second chance at life.”

A single organ donor actually can save seven to eight lives.

Transplant information is in a national database. The average wait for a transplant can be five to seven years. Pitt Memorial has 300 on its transplant list

To participate in National Donor Day, take part in one of these activities:

Register as an organ and eye donor by having a heart placed on your driver’s license at the DMV, or register as an organ, eye and tissue donor online at http://www.donatelifenc.org, or by completing a paper enrollment form and returning it to Donate Life North Carolina. Make sure your family knows your wishes.

Americans bury or cremate 20,000 transplantable organs a every year.

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