DCMC Honors Organ, Tissue, Eye Donors and Families

Door County Medical Center (DCMC) was among the more than 80 Donate Life Wisconsin (donatelifewisconsin.org) member and partner organizations that participated in a statewide Donate Life flag-raising ceremony and period of silence on April 1 to promote organ, tissue and eye donation and to honor organ, tissue and eye donors and their families. About 60 community members and employees gathered near the hospital’s main entrance for the ceremony.

Donate Life Wisconsin created the Pause to Give Life event as a statewide observance to occur annually on the first Monday morning of April to mark the start of National Donate Life Month.

“One donor can save eight lives, and this event recognized the nearly 114,000 patients waiting for a life-saving transplant,” said Christa Krause, chief nursing officer. “Of those patients, nearly 2,000 are right here in Wisconsin. We also honored the gift of life that donors and their families have made possible.”

The Donate Life flag was introduced in 2006. Since then it has become a national symbol of unity, remembrance and hope, honoring those touched by donation and transplantation. During the past 13 years, 50,000 Donate Life flags have flown across America.

Save and heal lives: Register as an organ, tissue and eye donor at DonateLifeWisconsin.org or at a Wisconsin DMV service center.

Wisconsin Organ, Tissue and Eye Donation Facts

• Anyone age 15 and a half or older may register as a donor regardless of age, health, gender or ethnic or racial background.

• Nearly 3 million people – or almost 60 percent of those who are eligible – have registered as organ, tissue and eye donors on Wisconsin’s donor registry.

• In 2018, there were nearly 150 living kidney and liver donors, more than 200 deceased organ donors, more than 900 tissue donors, and more than 1,500 eye donors.

• In 2018, nearly 800 organs were transplanted, and more than 700 recipients received the gift of hope with an organ transplant.