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What Are the Benefits of Organ Donation?

Organ donation is a potentially life-saving process that is in great demand in the United States. According to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, there were 90,000 people waiting for organ transplants in 2006, with nearly 70 percent of those requiring kidneys. In addition to saving lives, organ donation can provide other important benefits.

  1. Saving a Life -- Or Five

    • Perhaps the biggest benefit of becoming an organ donor is that it provides the opportunity to save a life. By donating a healthy liver, heart, or kidney to someone in desperate need of a transplant, the donor can help sustain the life of someone who would otherwise have died. According to iloveindia.com, the donation of one person's healthy organs can save up to five lives.

    Restoring Function

    • In addition to saving lives, organ donation can help restore functions that were lost due to illness, injury, or birth defect. Healthy eyes can be used to restore sight to someone suffering from glaucoma, for example. People who have suffered severe facial injuries can obtain cartilage that can aid in the facial reconstruction process.

    Grieving Process

    • For the family of the deceased who donated the organs, it can help them to cope with the death of their loved one. Knowing that the loved one's death helped to benefit another can help them discover a purpose in the tragedy, and can give them a sense that the victim continues to live through another's body.

    Cost Effectiveness

    • An organ donation can also aid the recipient by helping them save the cost of long-term medical expenses and treatments. For example, by receiving a kidney transplant, the recipient can eliminate the need for kidney dialysis that may have been required for the rest of the patient's life.

    Donor Benefit

    • In situations where an organ is removed from a healthy person to help another, such as when an individual donates a healthy kidney to a brother suffering from kidney disease, it can provide a feeling of satisfaction from saving the life of a loved one. This can also help to strengthen the bond between family members.

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