MILWAUKEE (WTAQ) – More than 2,300 Wisconsinites are on a waiting list to receive organ transplants — and a renewed effort is underway to encourage more donors.
April is “Donate Life Month,” and Green Bay Packers’ receiver Randall Cobb is heading a public service campaign to encourage organ donations.
Doctor Johnny Hong of the Medical College of Wisconsin tells Gannett Wisconsin Media that only about a-third of those on the waiting list get transplants each year. He says a large number of patients — mainly those awaiting liver transplants — die before those organs can become available.
The Medical College has a transplant center at Milwaukee’s Froedtert Hospital. It’s one of four places in Wisconsin where transplants are performed — all them in Madison and Milwaukee.
UW-Madison doctors performed 425 transplants in 2014 — and more than half were kidney operations.
(Story courtesy of Wheeler News Service)
