New York Effort Aims to Increase Number of Donor Organs

More than 6,500 people die each year waiting for a donor organ, and New York City is going to test a program aimed at increasing the number of organs available for donation, the mayor's office and the New York Organ Donation Network announced Wednesday.

Although many Americans have signed organ donor cards or registered with organ donor databases, until now organs could be recovered only from the bodies of people who died in hospitals, the mayor's office said in a news release. The program being tested in Manhattan -- in partnership with Bellevue Hospital and the city's police and fire departments -- will test the feasibility of recovering kidneys from the bodies of people who die from cardiac arrest outside of hospitals. (Only kidneys and livers can be recovered from deceased individuals who die from cardiac arrest.)

"Donating an organ can save a person's life – that's why I am an organ donor," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement. "But the unfortunate truth is that 8,000 New Yorkers are currently on the wait list for a donation, and there are barriers that make saving their lives not as simple as it could be. This new pilot program will help us test a process that could transform the way we donate organs and help save many lives."

During the test period, which begins Wednesday and runs through May 2011, calls to the Emergency Medical Services in Manhattan will be monitored by an organ-preservation team made up of a family-services specialists from the Organ Donation Network, an emergency physician and two emergency medical technicians who are trained as organ-preservation specialists. In cases in which resuscitation efforts have failed, the organ-preservation team will be sent to the scene. If there is a signed organ donor card available or if the person who died is listed on the New York State Donor Registry, the team will ask the family for permission to move the body to the organ-preservation ambulance, which will transport the body to Bellevue Hospital.

"While this program is designed to honor donor wishes and save more lives, extensive checks and balances have been integrated at every stage of the process to ensure the rights of everyone impacted by this new program are protected," the news release said.

"The overwhelming majority of those who choose to become organ donors cannot realize their wishes, since most deaths occur outside of a hospital," Dr. Lewis Goldfrank, director of emergency services at Bellevue, said in a statement. "The new organ- preservation unit hopes to meet the desires of those willing to become organ donors upon death, wherever death occurs. If our pilot is as successful as the experiences in Spain and France, New Yorkers will not have to wait an extended period of time for life-saving kidney transplants."

The pilot program, the first of its kind in the United States, is financed with a $1.5- million grant from the U.S. Department of Health Resources and Services Administration. The program will initially cover only the borough of Manhattan, with Bellevue Hospital as the sole donor hospital.