Wear blue and green on Friday to support organ and tissue donation
More than 100,000 people await a lifesaving transplant, but each day, 20 people die because they don’t receive an organ in time. “The need for more organ and tissue donors is always there,” says transplant surgeon Dr. Fauzia Butt with Hershey Medical Center.
Penn State Health and College of Medicine employees can help raise awareness for organ and tissue donation on Friday, April 16. It’s National Donate Life Blue & Green Day, and staff and students are encouraged to wear their colors and show their support by:
- Snapping a selfie of themselves and/or their team members wearing blue and green (remember to wear masks).
- Send their photos to this email box.
Everyone who submits a photo will be entered into a prize drawing for a basket of Donate Life-branded goodies, including tumblers, T-shirts, Frisbees, water bottles, blankets and more. Photos will be shared in a gallery on Daily Brief and on Penn State Health social media channels.
Those who want to share their Blue & Green Day photos on their personal social media pages should use the #BlueGreenDay hashtag and tag their location as:
@pennsthershey or @pennstatehealthstjoseph on Facebook
@pennsthershey or @stjoesreading on Twitter
@pennstatehershey on Instagram
pennstatehealth or st-joseph-regional-health-network on LinkedIn
According to the nonprofit awareness group Donate Life America, one organ donation can save eight lives, and one tissue donation can heal the lives of 75 people. “Many people think that, in order to be a living donor, you have to be related to the transplant recipient, but that’s not true,” Butt says. Groups like the National Kidney Registry and Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation have programs that allow unrelated donors to find a match with a recipient in need. “Organ donation is an amazing gift,” Butt says.
People who want to register to become a deceased donor can do so on the Pennsylvania Department of Health website or through Donate Life America. People who want to register to become a living donor should call the Hershey Medical Center Transplant Office at 717-531-6092 and ask to speak to our living donor coordinator.
The Hershey Medical Center transplant team performs kidney transplant surgeries for both adults and children, along with liver transplant surgeries for adults. This week, the team will be recognized at the United Network for Organ Sharing’s Transplant Management Forum Conference for a quality assurance project that improved organ check-in and blood-type verification by using online educational modules and flowcharts.
Learn how organ donations change lives by watching “Transplanting Hope” on abc27 Wednesday, April 21, at 7:30 p.m. The show will feature stories about Penn State Health patients who have had kidney and heart transplants.
If you're having trouble accessing this content, or would like it in another format, please email the Penn State College of Medicine web department.