Szuber received his daughter's heart. Many thousands of other people are waiting for corneas, heart valves, bone, skin or saphenous veins. Last year the pool was 10,000 to 15,000, of whom only 5,000 were donors. Every day, eight people die waiting for a transplant. The gasp of recognition that greeted Joe Murray's announcement that Dick's eyes were still alive, and that has swept through Italy since Nicholas Green's donation, is a consequence, in part, of the fact that the idea of organ donation is still too exotic and unusual.
Laws encourage organ recycl- ing.
The major religious traditions endorse it as an ultimate way of loving one's neighbor. The medical community is looking for ways to better coordinate and streamline the transplant process. There are two things all of us can do to make this happen. One is to seriously consider becoming organ donors ourselves. If we decide to do so, we must first and most importantly discuss our desire with our families, because hospitals will ask for the consent of the next of kin.