Organ Donation Advertising On The Rise

[Clark]

http://www.keyetv.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/Organ-Donation-Advertising-On-The-Rise-204527.shtml


Organ Donation Advertising On The Rise
When it comes to waiting for an organ donor it used to be a person's name would be put on a list, and then they would just wait. But a growing number of patients are taking matters into their own hands, by asking for donors in the most public ways they can think of. They're hard not to miss -- a larger than life plea for help. Desperate organ donors seeking help with a billboard. Lori Coulter's also hoping to get your attention roadside. The message is the same but this time it's posted on her car. "I don't want to wait for a kidney. I'm a type O, type Os are everywhere, and they're much harder to come by. So, I don't want to wait, so I just took it into my own hands," she says. Others like Jason Rubinstein turned to social media. He found his kidney donor on Facebook. "Social media is real time engagement with people. And so, if I post something on Facebook, somebody's going to see it within, you know, less than a minute," he says. And in less than a week, Jason had a donor. Creative searches are working for patients and drawing attention to the staggering shortage of donors. "Our waiting times are relatively short, but we're still talking three to five, six years. On the east coast, west coast, the waiting times routinely can be ten years," says Dr. Todd Pesavento, director of the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center's comprehensive transplant center. Dr. Pesavento says nationwide organ donor transplants haven't grown in 10 years, and living donors have dropped nearly 16 percent. The good news is, donors no longer have to be family. Medical advances allow even strangers to donate -- if only more people knew. "I always ask our donors, you know, what makes you want to donate, they said I saw something on TV, I read something, there was a story about someone who needed a kidney and I didn't know that I could help out until now," says Dr. Pesavento. And now YOU know. Kidneys are the most common organs donated by living donors.