Network gives donors ‘first dibs’ on organs

LifeSharers network puts heart — and lungs and kidneys — into growing donor pool

‘‘I checked off that box saying I’d donate my organs,” he said. ‘‘I remember thinking, I’m not taking this stuff with me.”

Years later, he remains committed to that ideal, but with one important caveat: He wants his organs to go to a fellow organ donor and not just any name that comes up on a waiting list.

So like some 8,000 others across the country, he joined LifeSharers, a nonprofit organ donor network that enables its members to have ‘‘first dibs” on the organs of fellow members.

‘‘Ultimately, it just makes sense to do it this way,” said Jortland, one of a half dozen members in the Potomac and Bethesda area. ‘‘If you’re not willing to give an organ, you should not be the first in line to receive an organ.”

The network is offering an incentive to spur organ donations, said founder Dave Undis, 52, of Nashville, Tenn.

Something has got to change, he said, with some 6,000 Americans dying every year while on the waiting list for an organ transplant.

‘‘There’s a shortage of [transplant] organs because...there’s nothing in it for the donor other than a chance to do something nice for another person,” he said. ‘‘We offer a really good trade. Members agree to donate organs when they die...and make them available first to other members needing an organ.”

The retired insurance executive created the network in 2002 after learning of the critical shortage of transplant organs.

Currently some 96,000 people are on the transplant waiting list, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

That list grows five times as fast as the rate of organ donation, Undis said.

‘‘It’s an appalling waste that every year Americans die waiting for organs while their neighbors cremate or bury organs that could save lives,” he said.

LifeSharers does not match organs with recipients. That work is done by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) under the auspices of the DHHS.

Many factors go into the matching, such as the urgency of the patient’s condition, odds for survival and how quickly the transplant can take place.

While the federal government does not endorse the LifeSharers program, it is legal for the network’s members to ask that first consideration be given to a fellow member before the organ is given to a non-member, said David Bowman, spokesman for the DHHS Health Resources and Service Administration.

‘‘In most states, it’s legal to direct an organ be donated to another individual,” he said. ‘‘LifeSharers appears to be a vehicle for doing that.”

Since the UNOS system ranks transplant patients on objective medical criteria ranging from size of the organ to time already spent on the waiting list, some might view the LifeSharers program as giving its members unfair advantages.

But Undis said 50 percent of transplanted organs go to people that have not agreed to donate their own organs, making the federal system inherently unfair.

He compares the situation to ‘‘giving the Powerball jackpot to someone who didn’t buy a ticket.”

Joining the network is a simple matter, he said.

Membership is free, anyone over the age of 18 can join, and parents can sign their children on. Members receive a card indicting their wishes, and inform doctors and loved ones of their decision.

Tim Harker, 62, of Potomac, took that step about a year ago after reading about the network and deciding it suited both his ethical and political sensibilities.

‘‘I’m a conservative and I’m never happy when a bureaucracy [like the DHHS] runs things in my life,” he said. ‘‘The notion I can have some say, make some decisions, even in a situation like [organ donation] is important to me.”

He is encouraging his three grown children to join, he said.

As more people join the network, Undis said, the federal system will benefit too since organs that are not used by members will go to non-members.

‘‘The whole point is not to make the system fairer, it’s to increase organ donations by providing an incentive to donate,” he said.

That scenario has not yet been tested, although 47 LifeSharer members are on the UNOS list awaiting transplant organs.

‘‘We haven’t had a member die and become a donor yet,” Undis said. ‘‘I expect when that happens, our membership will grow tenfold.”

To learn more

To learn more about how the federal government runs the organ and tissue donation and transplant system, go to www.OrganDonor.gov. More information about the LifeSharers nonprofit organ donor network is found at www.lifesharers.org.