Community

Organ Donation Awareness

The Irish Heritage Club of Sudbury cherishes a cause that has gained a great deal of momentum over the last few years. Over 12 years ago, the Irish Heritage Club hosted the first Walk for Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness. The subcommittee of the Irish Heritage Club of Sudbury worked tirelessly to plan and execute an activity that would raise awareness in our Community about the important need for organ and tissue donation. We have lost members of our Club whom have been waiting on a transplant list, and therefore decided to embrace this cause to help to save lives. Since the inception of the subcommittee, the statistics for the number of those who have signed up to be organ donors has increased tremendously.

To note, many Ontarians mistakenly believe that the signed donor card they carry in their wallet means they are registered, but that is not the case. Now, by logging onto BeADonor.ca Ontarians can confirm their current status as an organ donor. Every registered donor has the potential to save up to 8 lives and enhance the lives of 75 others.

To date, there are still 1552 Ontarians waiting on a life-saving transplant with 1095 of these waiting on new kidneys. In 2011, there were 916 transplants carried out, with 537 of these for new kidneys. This year to date there has been 32 transplants with 13 of these kidneys. Unfortunately, the numbers of people awaiting organ transplants are still outstripping the availability of new organs.
 

We encourage people to become a donor at www.beadonor.ca.