Organ Donation with LifeSource

The Health Chatter team chats with Susan Mau Larson and Nichole Salaam from LifeSource about organ donation.

Susan Mau Larson, the Chief Administrative Officer at LifeSource, has an extensive career advancing organ donation and supporting families. Susan positions LifeSource for continued growth and success by driving fulfillment of the long-term vision and strategic priorities ensuring effective internal and external communications, working with our state and federal officials, and leading key strategic initiatives.

Nichole Salaam, the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at LifeSource, works to identify and drive strategies to eliminate systemic organizational marginalization and promote equity and inclusion practices. Nichole believes centering the work of donation through the lens of equity and inclusion will help position LifeSource as a specialized leader in the field of organ procurement to best serve all communities.

Listen along as Susan and Nichole share their knowledge and outline the importance of organ donation.

More about LifeSource's great work can be found at https://www.life-source.org/

Join the conversation at healthchatterpodcast.com

Brought to you in support of Hue-MAN, who is Creating Healthy Communities through Innovative Partnerships.

More about their work can be found at http://huemanpartnership.org/

Research

Organ, Eye and Tissue Donation Statistics:

More than 100,000 people are waiting for lifesaving organ transplants.: Even the largest football stadium in the US could not fit the number of patients on the national transplant waiting list.
Every 8 minutes: another person is added to the national transplant waiting list.
5,600 people in the U.S died in 2022 while on the transplant waiting list.
16 people die each day waiting for an organ transplant
86% of patients waiting are in need of a kidney
46,000+ transplants were performed in 2023.
A single donor has the power to extend and heal the lives of many.

With organ donation, a donor can save up to eight lives.
Through tissue donation, one donor can heal up to 75 lives.

On average, 22 people die every day waiting for transplant
Less than 1% of donors end up meeting the specific medical criteria to donate their organs and tissue.

The majority of Americans—95% are in favor of organ donation. But only 58% are actually registered.

How you can help:

REGISTER AS A DONOR
Donating your organs can save up to 8 lives
Donating your corneas gives the gift of eyesight to 2 people
Donating your tissues would give the gift of healing the lives of up to 75 people

How others have helped:

23,288 organ donors In 2023, more than 23,000 donors brought new life to recipients and their families.
1 million transplants: In 2022, the US reached a historic milestone, achieving its 1 millionth organ transplant, more than any other country in the world.

Health equity:

Kidney disease has a disproportionate effect on Black and Hispanic populations. For this reason, they comprise a large share of kidney transplant candidates.
For the first time, more than 10,000 organ transplant recipients were Black, (10,824 for all organ types, 8,323 kidney transplants).
The total transplants (all organ types) for Black, non-Hispanic recipients increased 12.3 percent over 2022.
In addition, for the first time, more than 8,500 transplants were performed for Hispanic/Latino recipients (8,540 for all organ types; 5,407 kidney transplants.)