Grand Island, Neb. — CHI Health St. Francis will be hosting a donor remembrance ceremony at 2 p.m. on Monday, April 4, in Conference Room 2/3. The public is invited.
The event will be much like St. Francis’s first organ donor remembrance ceremony held last April to honor those who courageously gave the gift of life. The program will include touching stories from families of organ donors, a candle-lighting ceremony and moment of silence in memory of those impacted by organ donation.
Additionally, the event will include the raising of an organ donation flag, which will be flown at St. Francis for the remainder of April (National Organ Donation Month). The flag is also flown when a donation is made and a flag is presented to the donor’s family as well, according to Julia Smith, BSN, RN.
Smith, a member of the St. Francis Donor Awareness Committee, witnessed an organ donation during her time working in health care in Milwaukee. Smith said that this opportunity helped her see the importance of making plans to donate one’s organs after death.
“It was a blessing to watch a donor donation case,” Smith said. “It just makes sense to make a donation to help another person. It’s very powerful and it does save lives.”
Here is why the need for organ donors is great:
■ More than 114,000 Americans are currently waiting for a life-saving organ transplant. Nearly 500 of those people are Nebraska residents.
■ Seventeen people on the national waiting list die every day. Approximately 6,000 people die every year or one person every 85 minutes because there are not enough donated organs.
■ Each day, 103 new names are added to the national organ waiting list. That is one person added every 14 minutes.
■ Up to 100 people in need can benefit from one person’s decision to be an organ and tissue donor.
Nebraska Organ Recovery System (NORS) is a non-profit organization that operates as the primary contact for organ, tissue and eye donation services for the state of Nebraska, and Pottawattamie County in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has certified NORS to function as the single organ procurement agency serving Nebraska.
NORS works with more than 99 hospitals in Nebraska and with the Lions Eye Bank of Nebraska to promote eye donation. In keeping with its goals, NORS engages in many interrelated activities, including: organ and tissue recovery, organ distribution, public education, hospital development and family support services.
About CHI Health St. Francis
CHI Health St. Francis is a non-profit faith-based hospital serving Central Nebraska with state-of-the-art healthcare services. The St. Francis tower has 159 acute-care patient rooms, including the Family Birthing Center, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Intensive Care Unit and a 10-bed inpatient rehabilitation unit. St. Francis also operates a Cancer Treatment Center in Grand Island and Hastings, a Skilled Care Unit and an Alcohol and Drug Treatment Center.
About CHI Health
CHI Health is a regional health network with a unified Mission: nurturing the healing ministry of the Church while creating healthier communities. Headquartered in Omaha, the combined organization consists of 15 hospitals, two stand-alone behavioral health facilities and more than 150 employed physician practice locations in Nebraska and southwestern Iowa. More than 12,000 employees comprise the workforce of this network that includes 2,820 licensed beds and serves as the primary teaching partner of Creighton University’s health sciences schools. In Fiscal Year 2015, the organization provided a combined $172.1 million in quantified community benefit including services for the poor, free clinics, education and research. Eight hospitals within the system are designated Magnet, Pathway to Excellence or NICHE. With locations stretching from North Platte, Neb., to Missouri Valley, Iowa, the health network is the largest in Nebraska and serves residents of Nebraska and southwest Iowa. For more information, visit online at CHIhealth.com.