April is National Donate Life Month

Organ transplants transform lives and reshape futures. These lifesaving procedures wouldn’t be possible without a selfless decision from an organ donor. This April, we celebrate all those who heed this call to give the gift of life – especially through living donation. 

Each altruistic donor who comes through our doors may have a different reason for donating but one thing is for sure, their legacy of love will live on forever. 

But while thousands of Americans receive the gift of life each year through organ transplantation, the number of people in need of life-saving organs remains staggeringly high.  There are more than 100,000 people currently on the national transplant waiting list, and another person is added every nine minutes. Choosing to be a living donor may not an easy decision, but this month, we also celebrate all those who register to donate as an organ, eye and tissue door, after death. 

Hackensack University Medical Center’s Kidney Transplant Program is among the fastest-growing in the nation.  Patients who come to Hackensack for kidney transplantation have much shorter waiting times to receive a deceased donor kidney than other centers in the tri-state area due to our donor-recipient matching and the use of new, cutting-edge technology known as the LifePort Kidney Transporter. This hypothermic machine increases the organ’s viability and lifespan, thus decreasing wait times and improving patient outcomes. 

Hackensack University Medical Center is also the first center in New Jersey, and the second in the world to use innovative imaging technology before surgery to assess living donor kidneys more precisely and comprehensively than conventional imaging techniques. This same technology is also a tool used  during surgery to help guide the removal of donor kidneys. Known as IRIS by Intuitive Surgical Solutions,  the advanced imaging software in conjunction with CT scanning creates 3D models of the kidney that assist kidney surgeons with preoperative planning as well as intraoperative navigation during robotic-assisted donor nephrectomy.

Hackensack University Medical Center is proud to partner with the National Kidney Registry to decrease the number of people waiting for an organ donation by encouraging people, including our team members, to register as organ, eye and tissue donors. 

We hope that you will help spread the word that registering serves as a symbol of hope to patients waiting and by doing so today, you will someday, leave behind the gift of life.

For an interview with Michael J. Goldstein, M.D., FACS, director of Organ Transplantation, director of kidney & pancreas transplantation, Division of Organ Transplantation, Hackensack University Medical Center and one of our many happy and healthy patients, please contact [email protected] .