Understanding Donation
Understanding organ and tissue donation
Organ and tissue donation saves and heals lives. If you or a loved one has ever experienced a medical diagnosis requiring a transplant, you understand how important organ and tissue donation are to saving countless lives around the world. If you or someone you know hasn’t been impacted yet, we want to educate and inspire you to register as organ and tissue donor by providing you with important facts.
How deceased organ and tissue donation works in our region
There are more than 100,000 Americans with nearly 1,300 members of our community in Colorado and Wyoming, waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant to survive—and even more in need of tissue donation. Some of these people will find a living donor on their own, but most people need to rely on deceased donation. This is where Donor Alliance can help.
During a difficult time, when a person has a life ending injury and is connected to ventilated support, the hospital contacts Donor Alliance who evaluates if donation is possible. Donor Alliance talks with the family about donation, giving the gift of life, and honoring their loved one’s decision. A nationwide database quickly identifies the best match for an organ recipient for transplantation. Donor Alliance continues to support families to honor the recovery process and ensures the donor’s gifts are safely received at transplant centers in a timely manner.
Donor Alliance continues to support donor families to honor their loved one’s lifesaving and healing gifts through our aftercare program and signature events.
Living donation vs. deceased donation
Living Donors
Although Donor Alliance is not involved in the living organ donation process, living donation is an incredible way you can help save the life of someone waiting for an organ transplant. Through living donation, a living person can donate a kidney or part of the liver, lung, intestine or pancreas to another person in need of a transplant. Each potential living donor must go through a full medical evaluation that includes lab tests, a physical examination, and a psycho-social examination. The decision about whether to accept the living donor is then made by the health care team at the transplant center.
Deceased Donors
Deceased organ donation offers the opportunity to save and heal lives after death. Through this generous act, one donor can save up to eight lives through organ donation and heals the lives of more than 75 others through tissue donation. Donor Alliance works closely with hospitals, donor families, and transplant centers to facilitate the recovery of organs and tissues for transplantation. The decision to donate begins with registration during your lifetime or, if no decision has been made, by your family at the time of death. Saying “yes” to donation is a powerful legacy of hope and healing.
When you register at the DMV or at the donor registry, you’re only registering to be a deceased donor. By signing up to be an organ, eye and tissue donor in Colorado and Wyoming, it allows others to breathe, to see, to move and to live.