Hurley Medical Center takes part in state's efforts to promote organ donation

By Kris Turner | The Flint Journal 

FLINT — A vertical scar peeks out of Rebekah Harbin’s shirt.

Barely noticeable, the scar is part of what separates the 14-year-old Swartz Creek girl from other teenagers.

After successfully battling osteosarcoma bone cancer, Harbin needed a new heart at 11 because of chemotherapy treatments.

“You get a second chance at life,” said Rebekah, one of several people, including Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, who gathered Monday at Hurley Medical Center to promote new statewide efforts to raise awareness for organ donation as part of Donate Life Month in April.

“Every day, patients die,” Johnson said, adding that only 28 percent of Michigan residents are registered organ donors.

At Monday’s event, Johnson and state legislators unveiled a proposed organ-donor themed license plate design at Hurley. Proceeds from the $35 fee for the special plate will go toward registering more people, with a $10 fee to renew the plate.

Secretary of state offices also will ask people if they would like to join the state’s organ donor registry.

The registry has been moved online, and people no longer need to sign the back of their driver’s license, Johnson said. Prospective organ donors can register online.


State Sen. John Gleason, D-Flushing, said it’s important that people become donors, because they could save at least one life, if not more.

“We think we have a chance to multiply those names (on the registry),” he said.

Gleason knows firsthand the benefits of organ donation — he received a kidney transplant from his sister in 2001. He said he fully supports the option of being able to become an organ donor through the Secretary of State.

State Rep. Kevin Daley, R-Lum, spoke for the first time about organ donation Monday following the decision to donate his 23-year-old son’s organs after he was killed in a Jan. 31 accident on the family’s farm in Arcadia Township.

Daley said the giving nature of his son Thomas made the decision to donate his organs an easy one.

“There was never a question in my mind,” he said.

Because of the donation, four lives were saved, Daley said.

The are currently about 3,000 people in Michigan who are waiting for organs.

Harbin might have a chance now, but it won’t be forever. Her heart will wear out in about 10 years, then she’ll need another.

She hopes for a robotic one by then, but if that’s not the case, she’ll need another donor.

“Everyone needs to spread the word about organ donation,” she said.