Proposed state bills would educate and register more donors Check Your Heart Act would add donation question to income tax form
their representatives to express their support as well. About 2,400 patients are waiting for transplants. LifeLINES: How do you feel about Gift of Life’s support from the Michigan legislature right now? Patrick: We’ve made tremendous strides in the past few years. We started communicating regularly and educating them about donation issues. We also host a Check Your Heart rally on the capitol lawn in Lansing every summer now and we’re inviting legislators to Gift of Life Michigan in Ann Arbor to meet our team and see the life-saving work for themselves. That’s made a big difference in increasing their awareness and interest in helping us educate and register Michigan residents. LifeLINES: What’s happening on the national level? Patrick: We’re educating our congressional delegation and federal regulators about the national issues that our industry has. As long as people die waiting for a life-saving organ, more needs to be done. That is why we have invested
Patrick Wells-O’Brien spends a lot of time generating innovative ideas about how to add thousands of names to the state’s Organ Donor Registry. It’s the number one goal for his 23-person division and he takes his leadership responsibility very seriously. Gift of Life Michigan has made significant inroads legislatively since Patrick joined the organization more than two years ago. The organization’s VP of communications and external relations talks here about what’s on the horizon legislatively, and why new bills will save lives. LifeLINES: Gift of Life is working with a lot of legislators right now to sponsor, write and introduce new donation-related bills. Why is that? Patrick Wells-O’Brien: We have a great partnership with the Michigan Secretary of State, but COVID resulted in two changes that have affected the Michigan Organ Donor Registry. They increased the
number of years required to renew your driver’s license in person from eight to 12 years. That means the donation question is asked in person fewer times. And, secondly, you can do more transactions online. We get half the number of yeses to the donation question when it’s not asked in person. The consequence is that the Donor Registry is growing at its slowest rate since 2008. We need legislation to help us do some very important things that will add names. Donation begins with the Donor Registry, so if it’s not robust, lives are at stake. LifeLINES: What legislation are you working on? Patrick: We need the availability to register in more places than just the Secretary of State. We have strong bipartisan support, so we feel good about the potential of these important bills. But we are encouraging the public to write to
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Gift of Life Michigan | golm.org
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