April is National Donate Life Month, and Bates County Memorial Hospital (BCMH) joined in with several activities for Donate Life spirit week, April 17-23, to help spread awareness for the vital need for organ donors. A flag raising was held on April 18. Participants Jenny Wainscott, BCMH Director of Finance and Doncella Liggins, Director of Health Information Management share a special bond as recipients of organ and tissue donation.
Jenny is active with Giving Fore Living, a local charity that seeks to support and raise awareness for organ, eye and tissue donation, in memory of Darin Wainscott, Jenny’s late brother-in-law, an organ donor. She recently became a recipient of a tendon in her leg thanks to a donor who signed their driver’s license to become a donor upon their death.
Jenny commented, “Organ Donation — both living and by the unfortunate death of someone — are both very important. For our family it has helped us to heal tremendously. Knowing that Darin lives on in someone else is such a powerful thing. I am now a recipient. My new ACL is a donor tendon. You just never know what an impact you could make in someone else’s life.”
Doncella’s life was spared in 2018 when she received a kidney thanks to a living organ donation from a close friend. She is a strong advocate for live donor sharing.
“Please consider being a ‘living donor.’ I didn’t fully understand the desperate need for organ donation until it hit me personally. The thought of living organ donation can be overwhelming and downright scary. Studies have shown that living donors live just as long as people who never donated. These selfless organ donors have a sense of happiness, reward, satisfaction, and a higher self-esteem than they had before donating. By becoming a living donor, you shorten the time a recipient spends on the waiting list. Plus, you help another wait-listed patient because your donation vacates the recipient’s spot on the list for the next person. You just saved two lives! Please share the gift of life.”
One way to become an organ donor is to sign the back of your driver’s license. You can also go to the Midwest Transplant Network to register as an organ donor. Learn more at https://mwtn.org/
