Donate Life Month: Michigan Residents Urged To Become Organ Donors

LANSING (WWJ) - April is Donate Life Month in Michigan and Secretary of State Ruth Johnson is encouraging Michiganders to sign up to be on the Michigan Organ Donor Registry.

Johnson said the number of donors has increased nearly 30-percent in five years.

"We have to keep doing better because we have 3,500 people currently on the waiting list for that gift of life or quality of life, waiting for that phone call," Johnson told WWJ's Beth Fisher.

One-third of the 3,500 people on the transplant waiting list live in Wayne County, Johnson said.

"We have a teenager, he has dreams like all other boys of buying a car and going to college, but he needs a new heart," she said. "We have a 41-year-old mom in Ann Arbor whose fighting to stay healthy so she can take care of her 3-year-old son, and she needs a kidney. So, it's so important that you consider signing up to be on the Gift of Life registry"

Nearly 55 percent of Michigan adults are on the Michigan Organ Donor Registry, said Johnson, but the need for new donors grows by the day.

For more information or to register as an organ donor, click here.