Many milestones in Organ Donor Week 2018
A large gathering of people involved in organ donation and transplantation attended the official launch of Organ Donor Awareness Week 2018 on Tuesday of last week.
The annual life-saving awareness campaign, which is organised by the Irish Kidney Association and supported by the ODTI (Organ Donation Transplantation Ireland), takes place this week (March 31st until April 7th). This year marks some significant milestones for the Irish Kidney Association:
The 40th anniversary of the organisation, which was founded in April 1978; the 40th anniversary of the kidney donor card, which has evolved over the years into the organ donor card; the 60th anniversary of the first dialysis treatment in Ireland in May 1958; the 55th anniversary of the first transplant, a kidney transplant.
2017 was a record year for organ transplantation for Ireland with a total of 327 organs being transplanted into 321 patients including a total of 23 children/paediatric transplants. It is thanks to the gift of organ donation that almost 3,500 transplanted people in Ireland are enjoying extended life. At the end of 2017, there were 524 people active on the various transplant waiting pools for heart, liver, kidney, lung and pancreas.
The key message of Organ Donor Awareness Week is that families need to talk to each other about organ donation and keep the reminders of their willingness to donate visible by carrying the organ donor card and permitting Code 115 to be included on their driver’s license. Organ Donor Awareness Week also serves as a fundraising exercise for the Irish Kidney Association.
Throughout the week, the association’s volunteers will be out on the streets and in shopping centres throughout the country, distributing organ donor cards while selling 'forget-me-not-flower' emblems, brooches, lapel pins, pens and shopping trolley discs. All proceeds will go towards the Irish Kidney Association’s aid for patients on dialysis and those patients fortunate enough to have received a kidney transplant.