April is National Donate Life Month, which is aimed at encouraging people to become organ donors. That doesn’t necessarily mean waiting until a loved one needs an organ.
“There’s almost 100,000 people out there that need a kidney,” said Dr. Jennifer Verbesey, director of the Living Donor Transplant program at MedStar Georgetown Transplant Institute.
So, there’s a big push to get people to donate kidneys now, but many people are hesitant, Verbesey said.
“One thing we used to hear a lot is, ‘Well, I worry, what if my kids or someone in my family needs a kidney later,'” Verbesey said.
The Family Voucher Program through the National Kidney Registry aims to ease that concern. As part of the program, anyone who donates a kidney now gets a voucher for a kidney for a family member later.
“They come forward, and their kidney goes to someone who needs it. And that might start up a whole chain reaction of kidney transplants,” Verbesey said. “And they can list five family members, who, if any one of those people in the future needed a kidney, that person would go high on the list to get a living donor kidney.”
She said it’s a reassurance for someone who wants to save a life now and is willing to donate a kidney but doesn’t have a specific recipient in mind.
While many think of transplants as procedures that are done with organs from people who have died, an organ from a living donor presents a better option for recipients.
“Those kidneys tend to last longer, they work faster, they are really the best kind of kidney gift that someone can get,” Verbesey said. “So, that’s why we always advocate for living donor kidney transplant, if at all possible.”
