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As Organ Donations Increase With Opioid Deaths, Organ Donation Group Switches Outreach Strategy

(Shutterstock)

In Lakewood, on a cold night in February, twelve people gathered in the worship space of the Lakewood United Methodist Church.  After informing guests of the location of the restrooms, Rev. Laura Jaissle called for a moment of silence. 

“Creator God we thank you for this time and space as we come to grieve, to heal, to remember….” she intoned.

The event was titled "Hope After Loss.  Its purpose was to get community members talking about the opioid crisis, the lives it has claimed and organ donation.  As opioid overdose fatalities have climbed in Ohio, so have the number of organ donations.  It’s a ripple effect of the epidemic and perhaps the only positive one. 

“More and more people are registered organ donors, more people are becoming donors every year, which means more organs are being transplanted, which means more lives are being saved,” said Nick VanDemark

VanDemark is the communications manager of Lifebanc, a nonprofit group charged with coordinating organ donations in 20 counties in Northeast Ohio.  It worked with the city of Lakewood and the United Methodist Church to put together the event.  Lifebanc facilitated donations from 155 people last year, a 31 percent increase from 2012’s donors.  That year, just seven percent had died of an overdose.  Last year, 26 percent of Lifebanc’s donors had OD’d. 

“So we’ve seen a substantial increase in donors and substantial increase in the number of donors who are passing away from opioid overdoses,” he said.


Data source: Lifebanc

Organ donations have increased across Ohio, and, for the first time in recent memory, the state’s transplant waiting list has fallen, from 3,200 in 2016 to about 2,700 today.  That’s extraordinary, because to donate an organ, you have to die a certain way.  You have to be in the hospital, on a ventilator, and have died of brain death, or cardiac death with an irreversible loss of brain function.  That ventilator is keeping your vital organs alive.  Stroke victims typically fit this scenario.  So do heroin overdose victims.    

 “People who pass away from an overdose a lot of times they do end up progressing to brain death," said VanDemark.  "We’re able to take that tragedy and turn it into something really great for another family and also give the family of those overdose victims something to hold onto. Some kind of positive that has come out of that situation.”

Which brings us back to Lakewood, where Marlene Shay of Mentor is talking about her son.

“I am always proud to share my son Adam’s story.  Adam was 21 years old and on January 8, 2014, he became an organ donor and a hero," she said, her voice quavering.

Adam had overdosed on heroin several days earlier.  He had been clean for a year.  His friends and fiancé found him. 

“Watching my son try to breathe over a ventilator is an image that is hard to erase." Shay told her audience.  "Initially, because Adam was otherwise a very healthy young man, there was hope.    But after three days there really was no hope.  My beloved son was gone.”

With a slide show of photos of Adam playing on a screen behind her, Marlene Shay described how her son was a former Boy Scout, a football player and a musician.  He was also a registered organ donor.  He had signed up while renewing his driver’s license.

“Who knew six months later that that was his last loving gift to us?” she said.

Lifebanc’s data show its donors who died of an overdose were more likely to have registered for organ donation than those donors who had died of other causes.  That’s probably because overdose deaths are highest in Ohio among Millennials, and they have a more favorable view of organ donation than previous generations.   A recent federal study found that, of registered donors, 34 percent donors were 18 to 34 years of age; 19 percent were 66 and older.   

 

“The reason why Adam is called a hero is because he said yes.  Death did not get the last word.  Heroin did not get the last word.  And this is why he is a hero and not just an addict.  Thank you.” 

Another speaker, Lynn Daus of Chagrin Falls, says organ donation was her idea when her 18-year-old daughter Jordan died of an overdose in 2014.  Jordan wasn’t a registered donor.  But Lynn Daus was very aware of organ donation, having worked as an  assistant to a former heart transplant doctor at the Cleveland Clinic.

“I didn’t know this side, I knew that other side.  But knowing the other side and when a heart comes in, helped me to know we were doing the right thing.  We were doing what we needed to do.  I knew what someone was going to be feeling at that moment that they got that call that said, ‘Hey, we got an organ. Hey, we got a kidney.  Hey, we got a pancreas,’” she said.

Lifebanc holds many events to raise public awareness about the benefits of, and need for, organ donation.  But this opioid-themed one in Lakewood was a first.  It's a public relations shift for Lifebanc, an acknowledgement of the epidemic’s toll. 

“At our core, at Lifebank, we’re an organization that’s about saving lives,” said Lifebanc’s VanDemark.  “We recognize that this opioid crisis is affecting everyone in our community, everyone in our nation, for that matter.   And we wanted to be a part of helping people on both ends of that spectrum, whenever we can.  to let them know that we’re here for them and that organ donation is also being affected and we’re not blind to that.  We want to be part of the solution on all fronts.

Adam Shay donated his kidneys and his pancreas.  Jordan Daus donated a kidney, her heart, pancreas and liver.  Between the two of them, they’ve given six people a new chance at a longer, healthier life.

(Interested in registering as an organ donor?  Do it here.)

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