Judy Ackland introduced our speaker of the day, Kara from Nebraska Organ Retrieval Kara is replacing our previously scheduled speaker Tom Neal, who is also from Nebraska Organ Retrieval/
Kara opened her presentation with a brief video of a woman whose husband passed away and his organs were used to save another person's life, in this case, a liver was transplanted.
Kara said that 8 people can be saved from the organs of one person and about 60 people can be helped with the tissue from one person.
Nebraska Organ Recovery System (NORS) is the federally designated organ procurement organization (OPO) for Nebraska and Pottawattamie County in Iowa. Formed in 1977, NORS is a not-for-profit agency that is independent of any hospital or transplant center. NORS is responsible for the evaluation, recovery, preservation, coordination, and distribution of all organs as well as the recovery of bone, tendon, heart valves, and connective tissue for transplantation. Additionally, NORS provides public and professional education regarding donation throughout the state and Pottawattamie County, IA.
Transplanted tissue includes cornea, heart valves, bone, skin, veins and connective tissue. In 2015 there were 15,000 organ donors, 31,000 organ transplants and 1,000,000 tissue transplants of various types.
Kara listed some common myths about organ donation, following are a few of them:
1. If a person is a donor, the doctor won't save.
2. Too old to donate (this has changed and a recent donor was 92)
3. If a person has a medical condition, they can't donate.
4. My family can't afford
5. Not suitable for funeral
6. Religions prohibit donation
7. Family can overrule a documented organ donation.
One way to register to be a donor is at driver's license renewal.
In Nebraska, there are currently 450 on the waiting list
NORS is funded by medicare and transplanting hospitals.
