Gift of Life Leads the Nation in Organ and Tissue Donation in 2011

PR Newswire

1,185 gifts of life were transplanted because of the generosity of donors and their families

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Gift of Life Donor Program - the region's organ procurement organization (OPO) serving eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware – announced that the organization coordinated the recovery of 1,185 organs from a record 441 individuals in 2011, making this region the most generous in the U.S. and setting a new national record. For the past 4 years, Gift of Life has averaged over 400 donors per year, and serving nearly 10.3 million people in the region, Gift of Life's procurement of nearly 43 donors-per-million-population ranks among the highest in the world.

For the family of Jillian Shallock, this generosity meant a life-saving heart transplant. On December 1, 2010, 5 month-old Jillian was placed on the pediatric heart transplant list. Baby Jillian had been born with restrictive cardiomyopathy (RCM) earlier that July—a condition which restricted the blood flow to the young girl's heart. After several months, her parents, Billy and Shannon Shallock, decided to place their daughter on the waiting list for a new heart.
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