Notre Dame Sister Luellen Boeglin sees spiritual and physical miracles on a regular basis in her job as a St. Vincent Transplant Center coordinator.
Sister Boeglin, a registered nurse on staff at the Mendez Transplant and Urological Medical Group Inc. associated with St. Vincent Hospital in Los Angeles, looks forward to each day working with transplant patients. "My joy each day on awakening is that I am able and gifted by God to focus totally on helping to promote the healing process in my patients --- to experience with them how grateful we are for the donors who have given, not just something, but life itself in the gift of their organ," declared Sister Boeglin.
Though she had three nursing job offers back in 1997, Sister Boeglin was intrigued by the idea of working as a transplant coordinator, primarily assisting kidney transplant recipients. She is continually amazed by the physical effects on transplant recipients as well as the spiritual impact on both donor and transplant patient families.
"The work we do is clinical, but most of all it's spiritual/emotional," explained Sister Boeglin. "We work in a system that depends on people being generous and empathetic…we see the power of the human spirit each time the gift is made and received. It is remarkable --- a miracle --- to see the coming together of people for totally humanitarian purposes in their donation of life and the support of our patients."
Unfortunately, the need for organ donations far exceeds donors. Currently, more than 86,000 men, women and children currently await life-saving organ transplants, with 7,500 of those residing in Southern California. An average of 17 people die each day due to a lack of available organs from deceased or live donors. On a yearly basis, deceased donors make possible nearly 20,000 organ transplants while living donors allow nearly 7,000 transplants.
Three-time kidney transplant recipient, Lola Enriquez, 42, a confirmation coordinator at St. Lawrence of Brindisi Church in Watts and one of Sister Boeglin's patients, said she is "blessed by God" to have received her kidney donations. She received her first donated kidney in 1987 at age 25 after enduring sudden kidney failure due to the effects of the auto-immune disease, lupus. After two years, her kidney stopped working, putting her on dialysis and back on the national transplant list for two years.
Her second kidney lasted eight-and-a-half years, and Enriquez expected another long bout with dialysis. However, in December 1999, she received a call at 6 a.m. telling her that another kidney match had been found for her. Matching is made through a national computer network operated by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) accessed locally through the transplant donor network, OneLegacy. Transplant recipients are matched by urgency of need, blood type, organ size compatibility and amount of time spent on the organ waiting list.
Anonymity of the donor and the donor's family is a tenet of the organ donation system. Enriquez only knows that her recent donor was an 18-year-old deceased male. She spent five days recovering at St. Vincent's Hospital after her transplant and takes three anti-rejection medications daily. Every two months, she visits her nephrologist and every six months, she has a standing appointment with Sister Boeglin who monitors her medications and progress.
"There's always something good going on here, there's hope," said Enriquez. Recently, St. Vincent Hospital celebrated with an 81-year-old mother and her middle-aged daughter, who have each been kidney donor recipients. Dr. Robert Mendez, who performed the mother's kidney transplant over 30 years ago and recently performed the transplant surgery on her daughter, said the mother's donor, her 84-year-old brother, is very much alive and well.
According to Dr. Mendez, who estimates he has performed 3,000 to 4,000 transplants, the success rate for transplants stands at 90 percent, largely due to the improvement of surgical techniques and anti-rejection medications. As for possible adverse side effects for living donors, Dr. Mendez says the danger is minimal. He cited a UNOS survey of 129,000 living donors who donated organs between 1984-2004, which showed that only 51 of the donors ever required dialysis because of complications from their donation.
"Organ donation is like dropping a stone into a pond, the ripple effect is enormous," said Dr. Mendez, director of the multi organ transplant program at St. Vincent Medical Center serving as OneLegacy's president and chairman of the board. OneLegacy healthcare professionals are dedicated to achieving the donation of life-saving and life-enhancing organs for patients in need of transplants and also to providing a sense of purpose and comfort to the donor and recipient families.
Kisa Barnett, manager of critical care at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, works closely with her hospital's OneLegacy coordinator, Carla Talley-Hentz, in support of organ donation. The hospital has a 75 percent recovery rate of organs from deceased patients who have died at the trauma hospital and been identified as eligible donors. Last year, organs were donated from 12 deceased individuals out of a potential 19, a good record based on an annual average of eight according to Talley-Hentz.
"Surveys by the Gallup Poll show that 85 percent of the population would donate," said Talley-Hentz. At Holy Cross, families of potential donors are approached by a pastoral team to help them decide about donating their loved one's organs.
"We work with the family to honor them," said Barnett. "It's a tragic time for the family, but many find comfort in organ donation."
According to Barnett, the altruistic spirit inherent in organ donation appeals to families. Barnett said one mother of a deceased organ donor expressed it this way: "It's my right to be asked if this is what I want to do."
The ninth annual National Donor Sabbath, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services encouraging religious communities to focus attention on the need and benefits of organ and tissue donation, will be held this weekend, Nov. 12-14. For more information on organ and tissue donation, call (800) 786-4700, (Information Line), (213) 413-6219 (S. Mark Taper Transplant Center adjacent to St. Vincent Medical Center) or log on: www.onelegacy.org |