(NECN: Jack Thurston, Montpelier, Vt.) - Gov. Peter Shumlin, D-Vt., declared April "donate life month" and urged Vermonters to sign up to become organ donors. The New England Organ Bank, based in Waltham, Mass., applauded the state of Vermont for turning around what it said had been an out-of-date system for registering organ donors.
The New England Organ Bank said for years, Vermont was ranked at the very bottom of all the states when it came to signing up organ and tissue donors. The problem was at the Vt. Dept. of Motor Vehicles, the Organ Bank said. When people went to get licenses or registrations, there was no way to upload information on their willingness to donate to a regional database, spokesman Matthew Boger explained.
That was fixed last year with the installation of a new system at the DMV, explained operations director Michael Smith, and sign-ups have jumped. According to numbers from the Vt. Health Dept., 103,706 Vermonters had registered through the DMV by Tuesday of this week, and another 7,378 registered on the Donatelifevt.org website. That is a marked jump over the several thousand people that had been registered in Vermont before the DMV upgrade, Boger said.
"We're making progress," said Richard Luskin, the president of the New England Organ Bank. "We're delighted with the number of people we have on the registry."
Gov. Shumlin and his health commissioner, Dr. Harry Chen, encouraged more Vermonters to sign up. "I know I just had to renew my license; checked off my box, and we're hoping more Vermonters will," Shumlin said, before proclaiming April "donate life month."
"We know Vermonters are generous people, and when you do go to that DMV, don't forget to check that box," Dr. Chen added.
Friends Lee Duberman of Brookfield, Vt. and Rev. Deborah Laporte Bremer of Williamstown, Vt. echoed the officials' urges to register to become donors. Duberman donated a kidney to Laporte Bremer just three weeks ago to correct a progressive disorder that caused serious damage. "I feel so much better," Laporte Bremer said. "I'm just so blessed."
Local
Laporte Bremer expects Duberman's gift could mean a few extra decades of good friendship. "It just wasn't that hard for me to make the decision," Duberman told New England Cable News. "If I wasn't going to do this, who was?"
Both women said they have registered to share their organs with others if tragedy strikes. "If anything happens to me, I hope everything possible is taken and given to other people so they can be in this beautiful world," Laporte Bremer said.
For up-to-the-minute news and weather, be sure to follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
