2016/05/15 (Sun) Anyone Can Save Lives Anytime

 

  I am going to eat Subway cookies tomorrow. I am going to talk about my favorite book with my friends. This is the tomorrow I want to have. Now, try to imagine your tomorrow. What do you want to do? Who do you want to be with? We tend to take tomorrow for granted and expect it to come without any anxiety. However, have you ever thought about the people who cannot hope for a positive tomorrow? I am here to tell you that there are many people in this world who are uncertain about being here tomorrow simply because they do not have enough organs to keep them alive. In US, each day approximately 7,000 people die while 123,000 people are waiting for organs to be donated. Presently an average of 22 people die each day because they do not receive a transplant. The reason why they cannot receive is because that there are not enough donated organs.

 

Organ donation means taking the healthy organs from one person for transplantation into another. This happens after someone is declared brain dead, and has previously given permission for donating their organs. There are many kinds of organ donations including the heart, lung, liver, kidney, pancreas, and intestine donation. Experts say that the organs from one donor can save as many as 50 people. Organ and tissue donation is more important than many of us realize, for both society and the individuals it directly affects. Every 10 minutes another name is added to the national organ transplant waiting list. As I mentioned before, currently there are 123,000 men, women, and children need lifesaving organ transplants.

 

 

Organ donation has been spread out widely around the world. The world’s first organ transplant was done in South Africa in 1957 which was the heart transplant. Following this, the United Network Organ Sharing was established. Furthermore, the “Organ Transplant Law” came into effect on October 16, 1997 in Japan. In 2014, more than 8,500 donors made approximately 24,000 organ transplants possible in US. In addition, there were nearly 6,000 transplants from living donors. In addition, over 650,000 transplants have occurred in US since 1988.

 

Organ donations are beneficial for the people who receive it. However, some people from the opposite perspective might say that they don’t want their family to die without having each part of their body including the organs they have. They might say that they want their family member to die with his or her body intact without missing any of the organs they had when they were alive. However, I think we should consider that our loved ones are dying anyways. Rather than just letting them go away from this world, why don’t we use his or her death to save other people’s lives. Donating does not take away the pain of their loss. However, it does help them to know that someone else is alive because of their loved one’s donation.

 

I understand how you feel when a close family member or a friend of you dies. I know the feeling you have while going through  a time like this will be one of the most horrible experiences in your life. The emotions you have must be painful when you realize that you will never see the person who you had loved so much again, and know you will never get to hold them or touch them anymore. No one would want to go through a time like this. Donating organs enables you to help someone else avoid dealing with this pain. It provides a life-giving, life-enhancing opportunity to those who are at the end of the line for hope. Lastly, before I end, I would like you to imagine for a moment that you are in the shoes of someone waiting for a donation. What would you feel? And what would you want others to do to help you? I believe we all need to consider making the right decision to bring happiness out of death.

 

Bibliography

http://dying.lovetoknow.com/Benefits_of_Organ_Donating

Date Retrieved: May 6, 2016

 

https://www.unos.org/data/

Date Retrieved: May 6, 2016

 

http://www.jotnw.or.jp/english/00.html

Date Retrieved: May 11, 2016

 

http://www.americantransplantfoundation.org/about-transplant/facts-and-myths/

Date Retrieved: May 12, 2016