WVU Healthcare to hold Donate Life Ceremony

April is National Donor Awareness Month

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Hundreds of patients have benefited from the generosity of others through the Donate Life program in West Virginia. By choosing to become a donor, one person can save up to eight lives through organ donation and help heal more than 50 by tissue and cornea donation. 

WVU Healthcare will hold its annual Donate Life Ceremony at 2 p.m. on April 27 in conference rooms 3A and 3B on the fourth floor of WVU's Ruby Memorial Hospital. The event recognizes donor patients, families and the healthcare workers who care for donors and donor recipients.

Robert Nicklow, from the Center for Organ Recovery and Education (CORE) will present WVU Healthcare with the Silver Medal Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration. WVU Healthcare also received the West Virginia Governor’s Award for Life in recognition of donor efforts.

The celebration will feature a sneak peak at the new Donor Memorial Wall. The event is open to donor families, organ recipients, hospital employees, as well as the general public.

Nearly 100,000 people in the United States are awaiting organ transplants;170 are West Virginians.   

Organ donation decisions are made by individual donor designations on a driver’s license or state identification card. On driver’s licenses and photo ID cards in West Virginia, the symbol for medicine, a caduceus, appears on the front of the card. West Virginians can also designate themselves as organ donors by logging onto www.donatelifewv.org.