New England Donor Services

Thousands of lives are saved and improved every year through the power of organ and tissue donation. Please Register as a donor today.

Donation FAQs

You can sign up to become a donor by registering on the Donate Life Registry here. By registering, you ensure that your decision to donate can be honored in a timely way when you die.

If you register online through Donate Life America, you can change your registration status at any time at www.RegisterMe.org. If you registered as a donor through your state’s driver’s license process, you must remove yourself through your state’s motor vehicle department. (If you registered on the old Donate Life New England registry you may remove yourself here).

There are currently more than 125,000 men, women, and children in the United States waiting for a life-saving transplant. More than 5,000 of these individuals live in the New England region. Every 12 minutes another name is added to the national waiting list and each day 23 people die while they wait for their transplant.
The miracle of donation and transplantation allows the donation of organs such as heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas, liver and intestines as well as tissue such as skin, veins, tendons, bone, bone marrow, heart valves and cornea. For safety and to provide for maximum use of the gift, donated tissue is processed using cutting-edged technology by non-profit and for-profit organizations such as LifeNet, CryoLife, LifeCell, Tissue Banks International and others.
Organs and tissues are donated and recovered only after death. Age and health considerations are evaluated on a case-by-case basis at the time of death. There are very few absolute health exclusions to donation so everyone should consider themselves as good candidates for donation and register for donation if that is their wish.
There is no cost to the family of donors for organ and tissue donation. All expenses related to the donation are paid for by the federally designated organ procurement organization.

Although celebrities get most of the media attention, the fact is that thousands of other patients receive donated organs as well. Donor organs are matched to recipients based on blood and tissue type, geographic location and medical urgency. Organ allocation is blind to wealth or social status. Further, factors such as race, gender, age or celebrity status are not considered when determining who receives an organ.

Most major religions in the United States support organ and tissue donation as one of the highest forms of giving and caring to others.
No. The first responsibility of medical professionals is to save lives, and every effort will be made to save your life before donation is considered. Donation is only pursued as an option after all life-saving measures have failed and death is legally declared.

Federal regulations require hospitals to notify the local Organ Procurement Organization of the death or impending death of every patient so that donor registrations can be honored or so that families can have the option to choose donation. The OPO staff makes an initial determination about any possible medical disqualifications for organ and tissue donation, and if there are none immediately apparent, a trained donation professional travels to the hospital to further evaluate the patient. If the potential donor is already registered, the next of kin will be notified of that fact and information about the process will be provided. In the absence of donor registration, the next-of-kin will be offered the opportunity to make the donation decision. In the case of tissue donation, the family has usually already returned home from the hospital. For this reason, the conversation about donation with OPO staff is usually made over the telephone.

Using the national computerized waiting list, OPO staff match the donated organs with the most appropriate recipients and arrange for the surgical procedure to recover the organs. Staff will also stay with the donor’s family and provide support as long as the family wishes. Immediately after the organ(s) are surgically removed from the donor, the OPO staff transports the organs to the transplant centers, where the recipients have been readied for surgery. From the time death is declared, it can take between 12 to 18 hours for the organs and tissue donation to be completed. After the donation takes place, the funeral director is notified and transportation to the funeral home is arranged. Funeral arrangements are made by the next of kin in the same way as if the deceased had not been a donor.

Patients waiting for an organ transplant are registered with the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). The local federally designated organ procurement organization works with UNOS to allocate organs in a fair process based upon medical urgency, genetic matching and time waiting.
Most transplants are paid for by private health insurance, Medicare or Medicaid programs. Patients can get detailed information from their physicians or health insurers.

For more information about becoming a living donor, visit the National Kidney Foundation website. http://www.kidney.org/transplantation/livingdonors/index.cfm