Organ Donor Card plea

Kilcullen kidney transplant campaigner James Nolan has appealed again for people to carry organ donor cards, as the gap between dialysis facilities and transplant kidneys reaches crisis proportions.

James, who has a transplanted kidney himself and who is the founder of the Punchestown race that funds the Kilcullen-based Punchestown Research Committee, told the Diary this week that there was a 16 percent increase in people who went onto dialysis last year.

"The trouble is, even though the numbers of kidneys available for transplant went up last year by 14 to 147, the numbers still don't add up in terms of those coming off dialysis and those coming on," he says.

Bluntly, there aren't enough dialysis facilities available in Ireland's main hospitals now to cope with demand, to the point that the State is now paying for private treatment of patients at facilities like the Beacon Clinic in Sandyford.

"We need so many more donors, that I have to use every opportunity I can to urge people to carry an Organ Donor Card," James says. "It is just so important. It is the difference between life and death for kidney patients."



An Organ Donor Card costs nothing, is no load to carry, and if the owner is unfortunate enough to die prematurely, it gives so many chances for many people to live, or to have a better quality of life.

Get one now.

— Brian Byrne.