Social media efforts boost organ donors

DETROIT  Melissa Foster has used Facebook to keep up with friends and follow the Dave Matthews Band. Now, she’s hoping the social networking site can save her life.

Foster, 30, recently put up a page on Facebook looking for someone to donate their kidney to her. She has since heard from about 100 people wanting to get tested to see if they would be compatible. Foster is thrilled because she waited nine years to get the donated kidney her body now is rejecting, and she might have to wait between nine to 12 years for another donated kidney from someone who dies.

“I am a little overwhelmed with the people coming forward,” Foster, a Pontiac native whose kidney began failing when she was 16 due to a urinary tract infection, told The Detroit News. “But if they all follow through, somebody has got to match me.”

Foster is one example of how patients and activists are using social networking to encourage more organ donations among the living and dead.

Transplanted organs have long come from those who recently died and made their wishes known beforehand. Michigan ranks among the nation’s lowest — 42nd — in the percentage of licensed drivers who are on the Michigan Organ Donor Registry, said Betsy Miner-Swartz, spokeswoman for Ann Arbor-based Gift of Life Michigan.

Donors must sign up for the registry online or in a Secretary of State branch office.

Activists have tried to pass stronger laws to encourage more participation in the registry and are now using social networking to spread the word that 2,943 Michigan residents are currently waiting for organs.

At a presentation this month, Miner-Swartz encouraged attendees to tweet the need for organ donors onTwitter, and a few days later nearly 100 more people signed up on the registry.

“Social media works in the world of organ donation,” Miner-Swartz said. “Not only are we better able than ever to spread the word, but we’re seeing tangible results that ultimately will save lives.”

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