Anyone could be a potential donor and everyone should consider registering at any age. Registering your decision is important because less than 1% of the population are able to donate organs after death, based on the clinical criteria that must be met. However, many more people qualify to donate tissues and corneas.
Organ recovery takes place like any other surgery—in a sterile operating room with careful, experienced surgeons. After the surgery, recovery professionals perform routine reconstruction and preservation so customary funeral arrangements are possible.
Tissue Transplant Recipient
Tissues that can be donated include: bone, cartilage, fascia, heart valves, ligaments, pericardium, skin, tendons, and veins. One tissue donor can heal more than 75 lives. These donations are used for many reasons to save and heal recipients, including:
Corneal transplants are the most common of all transplants performed, including at Network for Hope, exceeding 46,000 per year in the United States. Those with cancer can still be cornea donors. Thanks to advances in pharmacology, medical instruments, and surgical techniques, cornea transplants exceed a 95% success rate.
Different from living donation, deceased donation is donating after one’s death. Death occurs when the heart or brain stops functioning and the patient is declared dead with a legal time of death. The cessation of cardiopulmonary (heart-lung) function is called circulatory death. The cessation of brain function is called brain death.
Brain death occurs when a person has an irreversible, catastrophic brain injury, which causes all brain activity to permanently stop. When someone is in a coma, there are some portions of the brain still functioning. Being in a coma is different from brain death. A patient can never recover from brain death. The standards for determining brain death are strict. The patient’s physician declares death and gives a time of death. The heart and lungs are able to function after death because the patient is still on artificial support machines (such as a ventilator). The machines are kept on for a temporary time to allow the option of donation.
Network for Hope's Family Support Coordinator will engage in a donation conversation with the legal next-of-kin or legal representatives, the power, meaning, and life-transforming nature of donation. If the individual is registered, the family will not need to provide authorization because the Registry is legally binding and holds the same significance as a will. If the individual is not registered, the family will be given the opportunity to provide authorization. The process of donation begins after these decisions. The donation process takes approximately 48-72 hours. The Family Support Coordinator will answer any questions about any aspect of this process. The recovery of organs happens in the operating room.
Donation after circulatory death (DCD) is a pathway to organ donation when brain death criteria is not met.
A potential DCD donor patient has a non-survivable injury or illness and is on a ventilator. When the physician determines the patient has no chance for recovery, the legal next-of-kin or legal representative can decide to withdraw life-sustaining therapies (such as a ventilator). After that decision, the next-of-kin may be offered the opportunity of organ donation. Network for Hope's Family Support Coordinator will engage in a donation conversation that the power, meaning, and life-transforming nature of donation. If the person is registered, the family will not need to provide authorization because the Registry is legally binding and holds the same significance as a will. If the person is not registered, the family will be given the opportunity to provide authorization. The process of donation begins after these decisions. The donation process takes approximately 48-72 hours. The Family Support Coordinator will answer any questions about any aspect of this process.
The withdrawal of life-sustaining therapies is most often performed in the operating room so the organ recovery process can begin as soon as possible after the person's heart stops and the person's doctor has declared their time of death. The person's physician and nurse will be in attendance, providing end-of-life support and care exactly as they would in the critical care unit. After the person's death, the organs are recovered expeditiously so they remain viable for transplant.
At your local driver's license agency in-person or via their website. You can also register through the National Donor Registry. First-person authorization is always followed after the donor's death, if they are registered and clinically able to donate. All recovery organizations are directed by law to inform the next of kin of the donor’s decision to donate. Being a registered donor eliminates the need for a family to make the decision about donation during their time of grief and ensures your decision to be a hero after your death is honored. The determination for those under the age of 18 will be made by their family members. According to the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, statewide electronic registry for organ, tissue, and eye donation includes authorization for transplantation, therapy, education, and research for the advancement of donation and transplantation science. You are encouraged to talk with your next-of-kin about your end-of-life decisions.
Yes, you can register your decision at your local driver's license agency, in-person or online, or via the National Donor Registry. If you die before you turn 18, your next-of-kin must still give authorization at the time of death.
Certainly, you can update your personal information or remove yourself from the state registry in which you live, or the National Donor Registry.
Organ and tissue recovery agencies, like Network for Hope, are responsible for the expenses associated with donation. Donor families are never responsible.
No. Income and celebrity status are not considered when determining who receives an organ. Donor organs are matched to potential recipients by blood type, tissue type, size, medical urgency, time on the waiting list, and geographic location. Additionally, it is a federal crime to buy or sell organs and tissues in the United States.
No. Donation does not impede the customary funeral process, including the ability to have an open-casket funeral. Donors are treated with care, respect, and dignity before being sent to the funeral home.
The first duty of doctors and EMTs is to save your life. Doctors and EMTs also do not have access to names of registered donors or any influence over the donation process.
Possibly! Donation is still possible with many medical conditions. Such a determination will be made at the time of your death.
Yes! You can register to donate your body to science and give the gift of sight through cornea donation.
Yes! A person's sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or expression does not prevent that person from becoming a living or deceased organ donor.
Yes! A person's sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or expression does not affect whether they can receive an organ transplant.
Absolutely. People living with HIV can register as organ donors, and give transplants to patients with HIV on the national transplant waitlist. People living with HIV make up 2 percent of the liver and kidney transplant waitlists.
Most major religions in the world support organ donation, seeing it as the ultimate act of giving.
