Chetna Pande
UT Organ Donation Awareness
Each of the two speakers who opened the
organ donation talk discussed their lives leading up to a time in which they
each faced death: both needed an organ transplant. Literally hanging onto life,
the men were saved due to the love and sacrifice of complete strangers who
donated the necessary organs. Today, the men proudly stood before us. Their
stories put all my ideas about life and my future into perspective. So many of
(myself included) talk about just grand ideas such as eradicating
all world poverty or somehow bettering all of mankind or some way to make a
difference in the world. In trying to make changes on such a grand scale, we
often forget about all the supposedly trivial problems that plague society. One
of those serious issues that many tend to neglect is organ donation. According
to the figures presented at the Organ Donation discussion, last year over 6,000
patients died waiting for an organ transplant. Currently, as of October 2006, there
are over 93,500 patients on the nation organ transplant waiting list who are in
dire need of some kind of transplant; unfortunately, less than 7,000 donors are
currently noted as donors in the