John Muir Health Celebrates National Donate Life Month

PHOTOS: Teri Lineker (left), emergency department representative at John Muir Medical Center, Walnut Creek, and Jody Miranda, lead financial counselor at the facility’s emergency department, raise the Donate Life flag. Last year Miranda received a kidney donation from Lineker after being diagnosed with kidney disease. Credit: Mike McEuen, media support specialist.

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News from John Muir Medical Center:

John Muir Health joined Donor Network West to mark National Donate Life Month by hosting a flag-raising ceremony to honor the thousands of organ and tissue donors locally and nationwide Monday morning at the Walnut Creek medical center.

The ceremony included heartfelt words from both Teri Lineker and Jody Miranda, long-time friends and John Muir Medical Center, Walnut Creek emergency department colleagues.

Last year Miranda received a kidney donation from Lineker after being diagnosed with the same kidney disease that killed her grandfather, mother and uncle.

Lineker and Miranda raised the Donate Life Flag in front of the medical center at the main driveway entrance.

John Muir Medical Center, Walnut Creek had 13 donors in 2014 with 42 organs made available for transplant. There are currently nearly 124,000 men, women and children awaiting organ transplants in the United States, including more than 880 Contra Costa County residents.

John Muir Health is one of the 175 hospitals that are a part of Donate Network West, which links donors and recipients in Northern California and Nevada. The Network works with families, doctors, nurses, funeral homes, coroners and medical examiners to connect donors to recipients.

National Donate Life Month is held every April and features multiple local, regional and national activities encouraging Americans to register as organ and tissue donors while also celebrating the heroes that have saved lives through the gift of donation.

In 2014, because of donations, 29,532 adults and children received organ transplants, 47,530 received corneal transplants and more than 1 million people benefitted from tissue transplants in the United States.

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