Uniting the Industry to Save Lives
by Tammy Neal
NOLN Staff Writer
What is your definition of a hero? Mine is someone who risks his or her life to save others. In my opinion, the ultimate sacrifice heroes make is giving their lives so others can live. Did you know during the month of April the Automotive Oil Change Association is giving you and your customers a chance to sign up to be a hero?
AOCA is teaming up with Donate Life America to raise money in order to reach Donate Life’s goal of registering Americans as committed organ, eye and tissue donors.
More than 112,000 patients nationwide are on waiting lists for some type of life-saving organ transplant, and thousands more await tissue transplants to resume their normal lives. Donate Life America works to secure organ eye and tissue donors by encouraging people to register as an organ donor.
This is the second year of the “Save Money and Help Save a Life Campaign.” Last year 259 stores participated and helped AOCA raise more than $42,000.
| Organ Donor Statistics |
• A new person is added to the waiting list for organ transplants every 10 minutes.
• Approximately 78 organ transplants take place every day in the U.S.
• An average of 18 people die each day from the lack of organs for transplant.
• 112,178 patients are waiting for organs
• 1,746 of these are pediatric patients
• 28,665 organ transplants were performed in 2010
• There were 14,500 organ donors in 2010
• Tissue donation is an option for most individuals, regardless of age, and is often possible when organ donation is not.
• The best way to ensure your wish to be an organ, eye and tissue donor is honored is to register your decision through your state donor registry.
• Donate Life’s goal to have 20 million more registered organ donors by end of 2012.
• As of June 2011, 42 percent of U.S. adults were registered as organ, eye and tissue donors.
• States with the highest number of registered organ donors are Alaska and Montana (78 percent each) and Washington (74 percent).
• Go to donatelife.net to register today.
|
“Certainly raising money is an important part of Donate Life’s objective, but their real goal is to increase organ, eye and tissue donor registrations,” said Leanne Stump, executive director of AOCA.
The Need
Organ transplantation is a “disease” with a cure.
“People aren’t dying because they can’t figure out what’s wrong with them or how to fight a disease,” said Ward Huntley, president of South Lubes. “People are dying because there is a lack of organ donors. There isn’t enough supply to meet demand, but this is something we can correct.”
A new person is added to the waiting list for organ transplantations every 10 minutes, and an average of 18 people die each day from the lack of available organs for transplant. As of press time there were 112,178 patients waiting for organs — 1,746 of those were pediatric patients.
The longest organ waiting list is for kidneys. There are currently more than 90,000 people waiting for a kidney, which puts the waiting time at two to three years.
Chances are everyone in the lube industry knows someone who has been affected by organ transplantation, and that chance increases to 100 percent if you’ve ever met Scott Rider, operator of Valvoline Express Care in Ennis, Texas. Rider was the recipient of a successful liver transplant in 2008.
Rider, who celebrates 25 years in the lube business next month, was a pioneer of the industry’s involvement with the Donate Life campaign.
“We need something to bring everyone in this industry together: every vendor, every member and every employee,” he said. “There’s a lot of people in our industry who have been touched by this.”
According to Donate Life, 90 percent of Americans say they support organ donation, but only 30 percent know the essential steps to take in order to become a donor.
“When you look at those numbers on the waiting list, it makes you realize how many people are waiting for that phone call (that an organ is waiting for them),” Rider said. “And that’s a pretty hard thing to do.”
Continued
[ 1 ] [ 2 ]
[Printer-friendly version]
|
