Category Archives: Useful tools

February 6, 2022 · 6:07 am

Italian Organ Donation Rates Rebound to Record Levels

Organ donation rates in Italy are of great interest to Maggie and me because when our seven-year old son, Nicholas, became a donor there 27 years ago, the rates were almost the lowest in Western Europe. They are now among the highest. The latest official figures, just out, show donation rates have more than made up the decline that came with COVID-19 in 2020. Last year they went up 12.1 percent, reaching a rate of 22.9 per million of the population. When Nicholas was killed it was a little over 6 per million.

organ donation report 2021 by region in Italy

Source: Italian National Transplant Center (CNT) and SITO (Italian Society for Organ Donation) annual report

Many people express surprise that donations are such a low percentage around the world (“only 22 per million?” they say) but that is because donating organs is possible for only about 1 percent of the population, mostly people who die of a blow to the head as in a road accident, a fall or violence. The new figures show that 69 percent of Italians say they would become donors if they are eligible. This is a phenomenal change and people and institutions of all kinds have played their part.

Transplants over the years - preliminary data on 2021

Source: Italian National Transplant Center and SITO report – preliminary data

Speaking only of our own campaign, they range from Pope John Paul II — who showed how deeply moved he was by Nicholas’ death and the generous-hearted response of the Italian people, by authorizing the casting of a magnificent bell with the name of Nicholas and his seven recipients on it — to ordinary people all over Italy,  some in their thirties and forties who were then just children, even people not born at the time but who have heard the story from their parents or teachers.

IMG_2755 SITO CONFERENCE, ROME 2016

Reg Green speaks at SITO conference (Rome, November 2016)

Most of the individual names will be unfamiliar to readers but they show the variety of our allies. First is Andrea Scarabelli, with whom I have worked hand-in-glove from within days of Nicholas’ death, and who I call Nicholas’ best friend. Without him ‘the Nicholas Effect’ could easily have petered out after a few years instead of being a force virtually every adult Italian still knows about.

     So let me take this opportunity to publicly thank the Ministry of Health, the National Bioethics Committee, the National Transplantation Center and the National Institute of Health, in all of which we have close contacts. And, thank you, Italian journalists for recognizing the importance of organ donation even when it was not making the headlines: your ability to see the suffering of real people behind the statistics made me feel very proud of being a journalist too. But especially I want to thank Luca Dini, former editor of Vanity Fair Italy and now editor of “F” magazine, Maria Emilia Bonaccorso, the health editor and Livia Parisi, the health reporter at ANSA, who have been the three media people most loyal to Nicholas’ memory.

IMG_2772 SITO CONFERENCE, ROME 2016

At SITO conference (Rome, November 2016)

Thanks also to those branches I have visited of Aido (the volunteer group that works with donor families and recipients) with whom I have had some of the most enthusiastic meetings of my life — and especially the heroic and tenacious Piero Gallo at Aido Giussano — whose commitment has never wavered from the moment I met him — and to three of the most beautiful women in the world (Jamie Lee Curtis, Alessia Marcuzzi and Sophia Loren) all of whom have told me personally how deeply moved they were  by Nicholas’ story. Thanks also to Professor Natale De Santo and other professors of medicine, transplant physicians and nurses, to Giusy De Rosa, a teacher who I first met at one of the 31 schools that, all over Italy from the Alps to Sicily, were named for Nicholas, to Marco Galbiati (another father who lost a beloved son and joined us by collecting fifty thousand signatures after we began a national campaign to allow donor families to meet recipients) and the thousands — yes, thousands — of other people who have worked with us in the last 27 years! With such enlightened activists is it any wonder that Italian donation rates are now among the highest in the world?

Reg Green

 

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July 25, 2021 · 12:39 am

Article on “IntechOpen”: ‘The results Are Positive in the Great Majority of Cases…’

IntechOpen, which describes itself as ‘the world’s largest publisher of online open access papers’ recently published a paper by Reg Green titled:

“The Results Are Positive for Both Sides in the Great Majority of Cases When Organ Donor Families and Their Recipients Decide to Communicate with Each Other, US Experience in Tens of Thousands of Cases Shows”

intech open video

Click this link to watch the video: 28E6021C-146D-40E7-B9F4-193CCC570762.mov

Here is the abstract and a link to the full article.

Abstract:

Many countries restrict the ability of organ donor families and their recipients to communicate with each other; many make it virtually impossible. These restrictions were made for the best of reasons, mainly because of fears that one side or the other might suffer psychological damage. In the United States, however, for more than 25 years, communication has been strongly encouraged if both parties want it and under conditions set by their medical advisers. In literally tens of thousands of cases, a great majority of those contacts, which can range from the exchange of anonymous letters to face-to-face meetings, have proved to be therapeutic for both sides and significant problems have been very rare. Indeed, it is the families who are kept apart who may suffer most. The author is an American journalist, whose seven-year old son was shot on a family vacation in Italy whose organs and corneas were donated there. He and his wife have met all seven recipients and everyone, he says, has benefited.

https://www.intechopen.com/online-first/the-results-are-positive-for-both-sides-in-the-great-majority-of-cases-when-organ-donor-families-and

For more information contact Reg Green at rfdgreen@gmail.com

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July 23, 2021 · 11:19 pm

From Wisconsin Association of Talented and Gifted: “Nicholas Green Distinguished Student Award”

Twenty years ago Maggie and I began offering the Nicholas Green Distinguished Student Award to primary school students who displayed the characteristics they saw in their own son: love of learning, integrity, kindness.

The award, which included a check for $100, was offered through the state associations of teachers of gifted and talented students to one student in every  participating state. It was financed by the money the Greens had put aside for Nicholas’ college costs and when the money ran out, some states continued the project. Here is the announcement we received recently from the Wisconsin Association for the Talented and Gifted.

wisconsin NGA 2021

https://www.watg.org/awards–scholarships.html

Perhaps your state’s association of teachers would like to know more.

Reg Green

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July 19, 2020 · 1:29 am

Manufacturers Fight the Virus in Unlikely Ways

The speed with which manufacturers, ranging from world’s largest corporations to boutiques, have adapted their production lines to turn out medical equipment to fight the coronavirus, has surprised laymen like me even in this most surprising of years. London-based 58 Gin, faced with the tight restrictions on bars, is using its reserves of alcohol to make hand sanitizer. Sharp, the Japanese electronics giant, is producing test kits. The Britain’s Royal Mint, instead of coins and precious metals, plans to make two million visors for medical personnel.

The Royal Mint has been producing more than 100,000 medical visors per week. (Photo by ‘The Independent’)

It reminds me that the boy who got Nicholas’ heart witnessed an even more magical adaptation. He was 15-year old Andrea Mongiardo of Rome. One of his doctors, Professor Stefano Marianeschi, now head of pediatric cardiac surgery at Niguarda hospital in Milan wrote to me to say that before the transplant Andrea was “struggling to survive, grossly under-nourished, only 27 kilos (60 lbs.) of body-weight and twice a week had to be admitted for albumin and calcium infusions.”

Happier days: Andrea, 7 years old, leader of the gang of four, with his cousins Valentina, Marta and Marco, all 5.

After the transplant and a period of recuperation, he lived a more or less normal life for 23 years. In time, he got a job and even played soccer. He told everyone he used to have a patched-up old jalopy inside him.  “Now,” he said, “I have a Ferrari.”  When he finally died in 2017, it was because of respiratory failure brought on by cancer. Nicholas’ heart, Andrea’s Ferrari, worked faithfully to the very end.

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An Article from Chile: “The Nicholas Effect, A Story All People Should Know”

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August 4, 2019 · 2:14 am
June 9, 2018 · 7:37 am

Organ Recipient Saves the Life of Woman Who Saved Hers. The story of Lisa Barker

In February 2014, a drunk driver in the American city of Lumberton, Texas, hit a car in which Dawn Sterling and her two daughters were riding. The adult daughter was pregnant and died instantly.  The other daughter, a 15-year-old, died of head injuries and was an organ donor.  Dawn was unconscious for over a month. She woke to find both her children and the expected grandchild gone. She recovered only to plan her suicide. “The very gifts that gave me life and purpose for the last twenty years were gone and I felt empty,” she says. At that point, she received a letter of such gratitude and hope from Lisa Barker, the 25-year old recipient of her daughter’s liver, that she could no longer face the thought of suicide. “Lisa saved my life,” she says. Dawn and her husband, Reid, have become close friends of Lisa and her family, who are planning to add to the good that came out of the transplant by adopting two children, siblings, from Ghana.

Few stories of the two sides communicating have such obvious momentous consequences as Dawn’s, which comes from Patricia Niles, CEO of Southwest Transplant Alliance, the organ procurement organization responsible to the US Government for organ donation in much of Texas and its 280 hospitals, one of which is Baylor, which recently delivered the first baby born in the US following a uterus transplant. “But the 58 American OPOs that cover every US state and work closely with many of the world’s best-known hospitals say that out of the tens of thousands of cases where both sides have communicated with each other, either by anonymous letter or face-to-face meetings, the results are helpful to both sides in the great majority of cases and in some cases dramatically so,” Reg Green says. “These communications also help boost organ donation rates because the two sides often decide to tell their stories in local schools, hospitals and churches so that other families will see for themselves how a simple decision can save multiple lives.”

Press release from Reg Green (first published in December 2017)

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May 6, 2018 · 3:01 am

A Proven Healing Experience For Bereaved Families

Four-year old Grant Thompson plays with Micki Parker, whose daughter Addie died when she too was four years old from complications of juvenile diabetes. Addie’s organs were donated and her liver saved Grant’s life. Says Micki: “I wanted to know everything about her recipients: did they like pets, were they funny like Addie was, did they like to snuggle up to their Mom after bath-time? Grant’s parents wanted to meet me too and reached out first. Amazingly, I was able to meet him in what was one of the most fulfilling events of my life. Knowing he is so healthy and happy has helped me deal better with the pain of losing Addie.”

(Photo by Alexa Citro)

In the United States communication between the two sides under the supervision of the patients’ medical advisers is strongly encouraged because it is therapeutic for both sides in the large majority of cases. Communication can be anything from the exchange of anonymous letters to face-to-face meetings,

The meeting was arranged by the Donor Network of Arizona, the organization chosen by the US Government to oversee organ donation throughout the state of Arizona.

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April 15, 2018 · 2:47 am

Other Countries Say Communication Between Organ Donors And Recipients Is Beneficial In The “Vast Majority Of Cases.”

Evidence is coming in from widely different parts of the world that communication between organ donor families and their recipients is therapeutic for both sides, says Reg Green, father of Nicholas Green the seven-year old American boy who was shot on the Salerno-Reggio Calabria autostrada, who is leading a campaign for a public discussion of the application of Italy’s privacy policies that prevents any communication between the two sides. He cites remarks by Anthony Clarkson, Assistant Director for Organ Donation and Nursing at United Kingdom’s National Health Service Blood and Transplant, who says communication “is a positive and beneficial experience in the vast majority of cases.”

Mr. Clarkson adds: “When asked, nine out of 10 donor families indicated they would like to hear from the recipients of their loved one’s organs. Donor families who are contacted tell us it brings them great comfort and are grateful that their precious gift of donation has been acknowledged.”

In Italy, the law enacted in 1999 forbids health service personnel from giving any information about patients donating or receiving an organ. Mr. Clarkson did not make his remarks in reference to Italy. They are the United Kingdom’s conclusions from its own experience.

They were quoted in a statement sent to the British newspaper, The Guardian, on September 29 by Dave Marteau, father of a 21-year old Englishman killed in a road accident in Palermo whose organs were donated to four Italians but whose family was unable to find out anything about them for eight years.

“It is clear that the way Italian privacy laws are applied is causing pain to many donor families, despite the selfless decision of those families to save the lives of complete strangers,” Mr Green says.

Mr. Marteau also cites a survey at a university hospital in Brazil that found 67% of organ donation families wanted to meet recipients while 82% of transplanted patients expressed a desire to meet with donor families. “A large Californian study came up with similar findings, with 70% of donor families and 75% of organ recipients saying they would like to have phone or letter contact with their counterparts,” he adds.

In the United States, the 58 organ procurement organizations that oversee organ donation in all fifty states are unanimous in encouraging communication, according to Mr. Green, which can range from the exchange of anonymous letters to face-to-face meetings.

One of them, Lifebanc, based in Cleveland, home of the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals of Cleveland, with whom it works closely, adds another dimension. “The healing power of donation and transplantation is perhaps never more powerful than when a donor family meets the recipients of their loved one’s life-saving gifts,” says its CEO, Gordon Bowen.

From a press release of The Nicholas Green Foundation – October 2017

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April 10, 2016 · 2:24 am

Policlinico Gemelli Hospital – Italy

The Policlinico Gemelli hospital, connected to the Catholic University of Rome, says “The Nicholas Effect” video (available at www.nicholasgreen.org under DVDs)  is the most frequently-watched item on its website, even in competition with universal killers like cancer or headline grabbers like Zika.

Visit also https://nicholaseffect.org/links/

 

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