How much do you know about organ donation?
1. Every year a staggering 10,000 people are registered for transplant operations in the UK alone.
2. Every day 3 people will die because a donor can’t be found.
3. Although 90% of people in the UK say they support organ donation only 29% have added their name to the NHS Organ Donor Register.
4. Even though African-Caribbean people are three times more likely to need an organ transplant less than 1% have added their names to the NHS Organ Donor Register!
With these facts in mind, we’re asking you to consider joining the register today, especially if you’re of African-Caribbean origin. If more people registered as donors, more lives could be saved.
So to please register TODAY at organdonation.nhs.uk, call 0300 123 23 23, or text 'REGISTER' to 84880.
A Bishop's View
At Premier Christian Radio we understand how important it is that more people register as organ donors, and in our recent interview with Bishop Joe Aldred he revealed why he is so passionate about this issue too:
Bishop Joe Aldred
A need for black donors
Black and Asian people are three times more likely to develop medical conditions that can lead to the need for a kidney transplant. This is because people of south Asian and African-Caribbean origin are particularly susceptible to developing diabetes and high blood pressure which can lead to kidney and heart failure. This is partly due to diet.
When someone needs a transplant, doctors have to try to match the donor’s and recipient’s blood group and, in the case of kidney transplants, tissue type as well. Patients from the same ethnic group are more likely to be a closer match and the closer the match, the greater the likelihood of a successful transplant.
There is currently an acute shortage of black and south Asian donors – only 1.5% of those on the NHS Organ Donor Register are of Asian origin and only 0.4% is black.
This means that Asian and black people have to wait much longer for a transplant, on average three times as long as a white person. Almost 23% of people waiting for a kidney are from ethnic minority communities and this number is set to increase. It is also the case that whilst, overall, families of 40% of potential donors refuse consent at the critical time, this figure is 75% for potential donors from a BME background.