Rotary District 9800
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Have a Heart (HAH) - Organ Donor Awareness
Since its inception, the Have a Heart Program has been able to
- fully support the vital service provided by The Australian Red Cross Life Gift
- raised awareness of the shortage and need for donor organs in Australia
- increased the numbers on the Organ Donor Registry
- funded the Non Beating Heart Research Project at the Alfred Hospital
which has provided a new innovative method of vastly increasing the number of organs available for donation. The team has now (from its first case in 2006), done cases involving 23 lungs and 21 kidneys with the method is being copied worldwide.
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| Prof. Gregory Snell MBBS FRACP MD |
This is the world’s largest experience and the work has been chosen to be showcased from among a thousand other submissions at the upcoming International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation Meeting in Chicago.
Many other organs have been recovered in the last couple of years from the same donors. In 2009, in the 11 months to November, 24 DCD donor kidney transplants were done in Victoria. These 'extra' kidney transplants, significantly supplement the 83 traditional donation-after brain-death donor transplants done over the same period.
A lot of lives have therfore been changed and saved already.
Very promising results from experiments are also underway in using genetically modified animal organs for human transplantation.
For further details please contact Dr. Ronnie Goldberg, Rotary Club of Williamstown or the Have-A-Heart Website
Non Heart Beating Donor Organ Program
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| Prof. Snell and Dr. Ronnie. Goldberg |
The "Havaheart" project initiated by Dr. Ronnie Goldberg (Rotary Club of Williamstown) with ARH funding to provide organs for transplantation is becoming a reality. After 3½ years research the results appear better than the traditional brain dead donor organs for transplant and the work will be show cased at an International Meeting in Chicago. A lot of lives have been saved already.
Photo taken during the experimental stage of the Non Heart Beating Donor organ Program: Professor Greg Snell (second from left) and Doctor Ronnie Goldberg (third from left) with the non-heart beating lungs looking good after 're-starting' them some 4 hours after an arterial blood supply was removed.
