”Oklahomans are wonderfully supportive of organ, eye and tissue donation,” Robert Turner, executive director for LifeShare Transplant Donor Services of Oklahoma explains. “Having one in three Oklahomans registered to be donors, is a milestone both for the LifeShare Donor Registry and the state of Oklahoma.”
The cumulative efforts of the LifeShare Donor Registry and the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety allows for all registered donors to be in one secure database. LifeShare Transplant Donor Services of Oklahoma houses and manages the LifeShare Donor Registry, which has been active since April 2004.
LifeShare of Oklahoma says it is vital that Oklahomans who wish to be organ, eye and tissue donors register their wishes. Oklahoma has a First Person Consent Law, stating that if an Oklahoman has indicated their wish to be a donor on a signed “document of gift”, driver’s license, state ID card or the LifeShare Donor Registry, then their wish will be honored at the time of their death. It is important that every registered donor share their decision about donation with their family to help ease the process; however, family members cannot overrule the donor’s wishes.
There are three easy ways to become a registered donor. Visit your local tag agency when obtaining or renewing your driver’s license or state ID card and Say Yes! to organ, eye and tissue donation; log onto www.lifeshareregistry.org; or call 1-800-826-LIFE to have a donor registration card mailed to you.
There are currently more than 88,000 people on the transplant waiting list, 550 of them are Oklahomans. One donor has the potential to save up to seven lives through organ donation and improve up to 50 more through tissue donation. Fifty-four Oklahomans died last year waiting for an organ transplant.
LifeShare Transplant Donor Services of Oklahoma is the private, not-for-profit organization certified and federally-designated to recover organs for transplantation in all 77 Oklahoma counties. LifeShare of Oklahoma also recovers tissue in Oklahoma for transplantation in the state and across the country. For more information about organ, eye and tissue donation please visit www.lifeshareoklahoma.org or call 1-800-826-LIFE.
