Organ donor hopes to create national registry

[Clark]

http://www.the-dispatch.com/article/20130121/LIVING/301219996?tc=ar

Organ donor hopes to create national registry
Dwight Davis

After she saved a life, she set out to change the culture.

Lexington's Sherry Mullies gave an organ to a coworker's son last fall and then took on the colossal challenge of creating the nation's — perhaps the world's — only living-donor kidney registry.

The purpose of such an online database would be to track indefinitely the progress and offer support for those who chose to donate an organ.

"There is no information out there concerning long-term health information of living donors," Mullies says. "There's nothing that tells us about numbers or health risks. What are the risks of donors having high blood pressure, for example?"

Mullies, a 51-year-old mother of six, says she believes that data would reinforce many expert opinions that there are indeed no long-term health risks for donors and that concrete information would serve as an encouragement factor for those who may wrestle with the idea of giving up a kidney. She cites one source that states kidney donors on average live three years longer than non-donors. "Of course that has a lot to do with the screening process," she notes.

Mullies reports that her health is good, as is that of her 38-year-old kidney recipient, Eric Ellis of Winston-Salem, who suffered from double renal failure.

Working as a business systems analyst for Blue Cross Blue Shield in Winston-Salem, Mullies has an inside track to her goal. She has campaigned for the health insurance provider to become a pioneer in the quest, and vice president Kat Gesh-Wilson is supporting her effort, Mullies said.

Through BSBC, work is under way toward a grant for the database.

In addition Mullies, whose maiden name was Sherry Rancourt when she graduated from North Davidson High School, has proposed such things as affordable health care insurance for living donors and Medicare to step in for a two-year follow-up.

The database, she said, would also create jobs.

In addition, Mullies is working with Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem to become a spokeswoman on the subject of living donors. She received the invitation from Sharon Alcorn, the living donor coordinator at Baptist who also suggested to Mullies that a living donor registry would be a wondrous creation.

"She asked if I would be interested in being an ambassador/spokesperson for the Living Donor program, and I accepted without hesitation," Mullies reports.

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