Organ donation

Every year there are around 1400 people in the UK who donate their organs and 1000 who
donate their kidney or a piece of the lungs while their still alive. 2400 people may seem a lot
but when you look at the people who are still waiting for an organ transplantation it is still not
enough. Around 6000 People in the UK are on the transplant waiting list. Because the waiting
list is so long there are still people who die in need of an organ. On average every day three
people die in need of an organ.

Types of organ donation

The organs that you can donate after death are the heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas, liver, small
bowel and tissue such as heart valves, bone tendons and corneas. There is also a possibility to
donate an organ while still alive. The organs that can be donated while still being alive are the
liver, kidney, tissue or bone.

Heart donation:
When someone’s heart fails it can be caused by a disease that cause weakening of the heart
muscles or blockages of the blood vessels leading to the heart. It can also be caused by birth
defects.

Lung donation:
Your lungs are an important part of the vital flow of oxygen in your body. Some people’s
lungs are damaged by disease or other. That will make those people live threatening ill.

Kidney donation:
The kidneys balance the amount of fluids and minerals in your body and makes hormones.
People with bad working kidneys spend a day attached to a dialysis machine. Those machines
will take over parts of the functions of your kidneys.

Pancreas donation:
Most of the pancreas transplantations are done for people with type 1 diabetes and end-stage
kidney failure. But its not normal for diabetes patients to get a pancreas transplantation.
Because most types of diabetes can be managed with tablets or insulin. The treatment can be
done for people that do not respond well to the insulin treatment, who have a kidney disease
and for people who have low blood glucose.

Liver donation:
When people live with liver failure, they can’t do day to day thing that people without it can
do. Liver failure can cause liver diseases, viral infections, Liver cancer and other toxins

Small bowel donation:

Your bowels absorb nutrients from what you eat and drink. Usually when this system is not
working, people are given nutrition through a drip into their veins.
When the small bowel doesn’t work well it is possible to get a bowel transplantation.
Causes for a bad working bowel are, short bowel syndrome, when part of the bowel is
damaged, removed or missing. Extensive and unresponsive crohns disease.
Tissue donation:

 Heart valve donations save the lives of children born with heart defects and adults
with damaged heart valves.
 Skin donations are used as a natural dressing. Skin grafts help to treat people with
serious burns by stopping infections, reducing scarring and pain.
 Bone donation is important in providing replacement bone for people who have had
bone removed due to illness or injury, reducing pain and improving mobility.
 Tendon donations are used to attach bones and muscles to each other and can help
rebuild damaged joints.
 Eye donation means donating your corneas to help restore sight to people with
problems caused by eye disease, injury, or birth defects.
 Placenta donation means giving away the amniotic membrane (and you can donate the
cord blood from your umbilical cord too) after an elective caesarean section. Donation
doesn’t interfere with the safe delivery of your baby and is entirely voluntary. 

Myths about donating your organs.

A lot of people still think that they can’t say a normal goodbye to the people that want to
donate their organs. Nowadays the donor is treated with the greatest care and respect. The
removal takes place in a normal operating theatre with sterile conditions and specialist
doctors. After the surgery the wounds will be closed up and carefully covered by a dressing in
a normal way.
Donating your organs won’t prevent you from having an open-casket funeral.

There are a lot of people that don’t die in the right circumstances for donating an organ. Only
1 in 100 people who die in the UK are able to donate their organs. Only people who have died
in the intensive care unit of a hospital or emergency department are able to be donors.

For a person to become a donor, doctors first need to decide if the heart stopped beating, also
named ‘circulatory death’ or the brain is no longer working also named ‘Brainstem death’.

There is no maximum age for being a donor. When the time comes a medical specialist
decides if the organs or tissue are suitable for donation.