National Donate Life Blue & Green Day

Hey everyone, I hope you're all doing well! This month's blog post is a very in-depth look at how different OPOs are handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Let's get right into it.

With everything going on with the pandemic, it has made it more difficult to find donors whose organs are eligible for successful transplantation. If infection occurs within a transplant recipient, progression to pneumonia may be more common in the immunocompromised population, including transplant recipients.

With regards to GOLM specifically, their work is heavily dependent on partnership with donor hospitals, who have been under incredible pressure because of the pandemic. Access to hospitals has been understandably limited at this time, which presents challenges to monitoring potential donors and discussing the donation option with families.

Gift of Life Michigan has been attempting to keep donation going as they are navigating the situation, but they're also receiving more referrals that are COVID-positive, which makes those individuals unable to donate. Because COVID-19 is an infectious disease, passing that along to an organ or tissue recipient would be a very dangerous. So, they are carefully monitoring those patients and not pursuing donation if necessary.