In our society, most people prefer to donate their blood when it comes to donation but there are many kinds of donations that could help save lives.
Thousands of South Africans await organ and tissue transplants because of the shortage of organs and tissue donors.
The demand for bones, skin, corneas and heart valves is too high and outweighs demands for other donors.
Every day a person is born and every day one loses their life, what better initiative than to donate organs to help save lives.
The Organ Donation Foundation has compiled a study showing that every year there is a decrease of the number of donors and the list for people in need of donors keep increasing day by day.
The ODF launched the Say Yes be an organ donor campaign in the month of August.
This initiative was to educate medical professionals to say yes to organ referrals and inform organ donor families to say yes to organ donation.
Less than 600 transplants are performed in South Africa every year and over 4300 are awaiting donors.
Organ and tissue donation is a cry of emergency and just one person can save seven lives.
Cornea is one of the tissues that are transplanted most often, however, the problem is that the need far outweighs the demand.
Thousands of South African patients need urgent cornea transplant, but due to the shortage, only a fraction of people are privileged enough to receive the gift of sight.
The result is that corneas have to be imported from other countries at exorbitant cost and the ordinary person never has the opportunity to receive a transplant.
To register to be an organ donor go to www.odf.org.za or call this toll free number 0800 22 66 11.
