The statistics speak volumes:
- More than 100,000 men, women and children currently require life-saving transplants
- Every 11 minutes, another name is added to the National Organ Transplant Waiting List
- On average, 18 people die each day due to the lack of organs available for transplant.
- One donor can help more than 50 people.
National Donate Life Month (NDLM) was instituted by Donate Life America and its members in 2003 to help address this tragic situation. In 2010, President Obama officially proclaimed April as National Donate Life Month and called upon “health care professionals, volunteers, educators, government agencies, faith-based and community groups, and private organizations to join forces to boost the number of organ, tissue, blood, and stem cell donors throughout our Nation.”
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As estate planning attorneys, we are well aware of the stress families endure hoping for a loved one’s potentially life-saving organ transplant—and the anguish they suffer when one is not available in time. We therefore welcome this initiative and suggest if you haven’t made known your wish to be an organ donor, or if you’ve only put it on your driver’s license, it’s also a good idea to fill out an organ donor card as a further indication of your wishes.
We also applaud the efforts of participants in the 6th annual National Healthcare Decisions Day, which falls on April 16. Together, these initiatives go a long way toward creating greater public awareness about the need for, and benefits of, proper planning and communication about one’s health care wishes.
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While organ donation, and all advanced directives, are deeply personal decisions, we hope you will consider the importance of making them known in advance, discussing them with loved ones, and making sure they are both legally documented and easily accessible during an emergency or in the event of incapacity. Contact an attorney If you would like to make changes to your advance health directives, or need to create advance health directives in the first place.
