Many in Hawai’i are on waiting lists for organs that can save their lives Seven years ago, Reg Green went through an experience in Italy that changed his life forever and enabled him to see life can come from death.
Many in Hawai’i are on waiting lists for organs that can save their lives
Seven years ago, Reg Green went through an experience in Italy that changed his life forever and enabled him to see life can come from death.
On Sept. 29,1994, while traveling in that country with his family, Green’s 7-year-old son, Nicholas, was shot and killed by robbers while asleep in the back seat of a family car. The bullet lodged in his brain, and two days later he died.
Nicholas’ death drew international attention when he became an organ donor, saving the lives of seven people who were in dire need of organ transplants.
His son’s death and his “gifts” raised worldwide awareness of organ donations, his father said.
Nicholas Green’s story was made into a CBS movie and told in book written by Green.
Green said publicly talking about the tragedy has helped his family heal and has given him the chance to discuss the importance of organ donations and to encourage potential donor families to consider it as a way to save lives.
“Yes, seven years have passed, but we are doing it because we feel it is our life’s work,” Green said.
During a recent vacation with his wife and three children on Kaua’i and Oahu, Green, a resident of California, was scheduled to give talks at the Kapa’a Lions Club and the Fil-Am Jaycees. Green also was to meet potential donor families on O’ahu.
Robyn Kaufman, executive director of the Organ Donor Center of Hawai’i on O’ahu, said Green’s visit could help bolster donor and tissue donations in this state.
Organ donations have gone up over the past few years, setting new state records, Kaufman said. Organ donations rose from 16 in 1998 to 26 in 1999 and 29 in 2000. For that period, 183 life-saving transplants were performed.
Donations have increased among Hawai’i’s Filipino population, a group that is over-represented on the transplant waiting list, Kaufman said.
The federal Heath Care Financing Administration has recognized the Organ Donor Center of Hawaii for its 62 percent increase in donors, marking an improvement at a time when organ donations are flat worldwide, state officials say.
The federal government cited the Organ Donor Center’s organ and tissue recovery programs as the most improved in the western United States, the organization said.
The Hawai’i organization attributes the increase in donations to federal legislation enacted in 1998 that supports the role of hospitals in the organ and tissue recovery process; increased partnership with Hawai’i hospitals; improved clinical operations; increased visibility on the issue of donations nationally and education efforts.
During “Organ Tissue and Eye Awareness Month” last March, Kaua’i Mayor Maryanne Kusaka and an Organ Donor Center representative honored Kaua’i donors and their families.
At that time, the organs of six Hawai’i residents, including one from Kaua’i, were donated for 18 transplants. Transplants are done at the St. Francis Transplant Institute on Oahu.
Green said in cases where loved ones have died, family members are more likely to agree to an organ donation if they are “prepared a head of time.”
“When people are given the information and discuss it, then the donation goes up to 90 percent in Hawai’i,” Green said. “If they don’t discuss it, it is only 50 percent.”
Green said he is not trying to convince people to buy the idea of organ donations, only to present information so that they can decide whether that process is appropriate for them.
The need for organ donations is critical, said Green, adding, “18 people die every day waiting for a transplant.”
Over the last three years, the number of people in Hawai’i waiting for life-saving transplants has increased by more than 50 percent, from 190 people in 1999 to more than 300 people in 2001, Kaufman said.
Green said seven lives were saved when his son’s heart, corneas, liver, pancreas cells and kidneys were donated.
Green said one recipient was a mother with failing vision, a diabetic who repeatedly fell into comas, a boy with heart disease, a sportsman who was losing his vision, two children who were hooked up to dialysis machines and a 19-year-old girl who was dying.
Green said the donation of organs was “one good thing that came out of this wretched business.”
Green, a former journalist who emigrated to the United States from England, wrote a book about the family ordeal following Nicholas” death in “The Nicholas Effect: A Boy’s Gift to the World.”
The royalties from the sale of the book go to the Nicholas Green Foundation, established to expand the understanding of organ and tissue donation.
