Steve Jobs helps push for organ donar registry

Steve Jobs teamed up with the California governer Arnold Schwarzenegger to discuss the recent liver transplant he has had to try help push for change in the organ donar process.

Appleinsider reports,

The bill, SB 1395 by state Sen. Elaine Alquist, D-San Jose, makes it mandatory for Californian residents to accept or decline the option of becoming an organ donor when they renew their drivers licenses, according to San Jose Mercury News. Under the current system, residents are free to affix a pink sticker to their license if they remember to do so.

The legislation would also create the nation’s first “living donor registry,” allowing altruistic people to sign up to offer one of their kidneys to a sick person,” according to the report, which cites Stanford doctors as saying that kidney donation is relatively safe and does not shorten life span.

Jobs had his successful liver transplant last year. At that time there was no available donors in California and it was then he enrolled on a list at Memphis hospital. This is where he finally received his liver transplant. Mercurynews reports that Jobs assured everyone that he didn’t jump any short list, he received the organ because he was the sickest patient there with a organ match. Due to his financial status though he was very fortunate to be able to travel such a distance and actually receive the organ unlike a lot of people in California.

He went on to say that 400 people died in California waiting for a donor and he too could have died. In recent years the number of donors in California as dropped significantly.

Jobs decided to break his silence about his liver transplant as he couldn’t understand the current system and why everybody couldn’t just have an option to answer the simple question; will you donate your organs?

Mercury news went on to say,

Commending Jobs, the governor said “What I like about Steve is, because he is a wealthy man that helped him get the transplant. But he doesn’t want that — that only wealthy people can get the transplant and have a plane waiting to take him anywhere he needs to go.

“He wants every human being, if you have no money at all or if you’re the richest person in the world,” he said, “everyone ought to have the right to get a transplant immediately.

I think that last comment says it all really that yes everyone should have a right to a donor from where ever it may be available and straight away. The question is though how many people will lose their life until we realize this? The answer is simple, too many.

How do you feel about the organ donor registry? Are you an organ donor?

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