Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust is working with NHS Blood and Transplant to promote organ donation to all its staff, patients, and visitors. The doors to the main lifts in the Emergency Care Centre and on level 3 outside of Critical Care have been covered with promotional messages urging people to register.
There are 47 people currently in the borough who need a lifesaving organ transplant. They need people to say yes to organ donation so they can get the organ they so desperately need.
We are promoting organ donation in the hope that it will make people think about it while waiting for the lift and then go on to register their decision. This would hopefully, in turn, open the door to more people getting the transplants they need.
Over the past year, 9 people in Gateshead have had their lives saved or transformed thanks to deceased organ donors from across the UK. However, sadly three people a day will still die while in need of a transplant due to the shortage of people willing to donate organs.
Lizzie Stephenson, Specialist Nurse for Organ Donation at Gateshead Health said:
Organ donation saves lives and one organ donor can save or transform up to nine lives and even more by donating tissue as well. I know that more families agree to donate if they know their loved one was on the Organ Donor Register. Save your family from having to guess what you would have wanted. Register your decision on the NHS Organ Donation Register and let your family know your decision. One day it could be someone you love in need of a transplant.
Jayne Wall, Critical Care Deputy Sister at Gateshead Health said:
We are delighted to be promoting organ donation on the doors of some of the lifts within the hospital. Transplants save lives and are only possible if people are willing to donate. Every single hospital in the UK will be in a town or city where there are patients waiting for a transplant and we hope this initiative will prompt our employees, patients and visitors to the hospital to think about organ donation and commit to save lives as a donor by registering their decision on the NHS Organ Donation Register.
Register today at www.organdonation.nhs.uk