Donate Life Month

What are the facts?

In the United States alone there are over 100,000 people waiting for a lifesaving organ, eye, or tissue donation. This number increases every eight minutes, as at least one person joins the list on average within minutes of the last. We’ve made, and continue to make, amazing strides towards the progression of organ donation (OPTN 2022).

In September of 2022 the US hit a major milestone by successfully performing one million transplants since the time of the first successful kidney transplant in 1954. Since then, the number of organ transplants continues to increase on a yearly basis. In fact, as of 2023 medical professionals have hit a 13-year streak of an increase in transplants performed due to the donation of deceased donors. There was a total of 46, 632 transplants in the United Stated from both living and deceased donors; 39,679 of these were from the deceased who turned tragedy into a heroic action. The other 6,953 donations were from living donors which is the highest this number has been since 2019 (OPTN 2023).

Did you know?

The sad fact is that 16 people on the national transplant list die per day waiting for an organ, eye, or tissue donation. But there is some hope. One organ donor can save eight different lives, or at least offer a way to improve someone’s life. It takes only one person donating their corneas to help two people restore their sight, and one tissue donor can help heal 75 people (Donate Life America).

What can you do?

The next time you go to your doctor’s office ask your doctor about becoming an organ donor, so that you can help save lives too. Or visit the the Donate Life Website to find out more.

*The links below contain the sources of the information used in this article.

United States reaches milestone of one million organ transplants - OPTN (hrsa.gov)

Continued increase in organ donation drives new records in 2023; New milestones exceeded - OPTN (hrsa.gov)

Organ, Eye and Tissue Donation Statistics - Donate Life America