The numbers just don’t jive.
More than 95 per cent of British Columbians support organ donation but only 19 per cent have registered as organ donors.
The other statistic is that there are 4,400 gravely ill Canadians who need transplants and 230 people died on the waiting list in 2012, the last year for which figures are available.
So it is welcome news that the Service BC Centre in Salmon Arm is one of the first in the province to offer citizens the chance to quickly and easily register their decision about becoming an organ donor.
Many Salmon Arm residents are aware of the efforts to support four-year-old Megan Leverrier in her fight against an enormous tumour attached to her liver. After months of treatment at Sick Kids in Toronto, her only hope for survival was to receive a transplant from a child donor.
Thankfully, Megan’s chance at life came. Some parent somewhere made the heart-wrenching decision to help another when their own child was lost.
And now, after six months in hospital, there is hope that Megan and her family will soon be able to return to B.C.
Megan’s family has encouraged others to be sure their wishes regarding organ donation are known to their family and registered.
If every Shuswap resident who supported Megan would head down to the Service BC office and sign up, it would go a long way towards making this community a champion of organ donation.