Gift of Life: Groundbreaking transplants, with more advances in the works

PHILADELPHIA -- When Gift of Life started in 1974, it coordinated 47 kidney transplants.

Last year, it handled 1,800 transplants of many organs and even more tissue.

There has been so much progress, but so much yet to do.

The year 2023 was a record-setting year in organ donation.

46,000 transplants was a record, along with record numbers of kidneys, hearts, livers, and lungs.

But the demand isn't slowing down.

"There's over 100,000 people waiting nationally, over 5,000 locally," says Gift of Life President and CEO Rick Hasz.

Hasz says the average wait for a kidney is now five years.

Since 2008, the Philadelphia region has been the most generous in the nation for donation, enabling local hospitals to be groundbreakers.

"Things such as faces and hands, and most recently, uterus transplant," says Hasz.

Zion Harvey, who was already a kidney recipient, received two hands at Children's Hospital.

"We just learned he's turned 16 and is looking forward to his driver's license," he says with pride.

Lindsay Ess, who received two hands at the University of Pennsylvania, just got engaged.

"She had a hand to put the engagement ring on," he notes.

Robert Chelsea received the first-ever face transplant for an African-American.

Hasz says the biggest advances now are in preservation technology, such as machines that can keep oxygen going to lungs or hearts.

"So that we can better utilize the organs that we have now," he says.

And that includes organs from seniors, who may think they're too old to donate.

"Our oldest donor in the United States has been over 98 years old, who was able to donate their liver," he says of Orville Allen, a World War II and Korean War veteran, and long-time educator in southeastern Missouri.

Hasz says registering as a donor won't mean less life-saving care in a hospital.

But stating your wishes in some way will make a difference.

"By you having a conversation with your family, it takes that burden away at a very difficult time," he says.

"You've given life, not only to one person but really to their entire family," he adds.

It only takes a minute or two to register. If you haven't signed up, you can do it right now.

Click here: Sign-Up-to-Save-Lives