As many as 5,900 people in our region are waiting for some form of organ or tissue donation at any time, according to Howard Nathan, president and CEO of Gift of Life.

Of that number at least 110 are waiting for heart transplants. Nationally the numbers are 122,000 awaiting transplants, with 3,000 waiting for hearts.Gift of Life, started in 1974, coordinates organ and tissue donations for all 129 hospitals in the region. In 1994, the last piece of legislation signed into law by Gov. Robert Casey, a transplant recipient himself, was Act 102.Since Act 102 went into effect, every death in Pennsylvania must be reported to Gift of Life to determine potential suitability for organ or tissue transplant. If it is determined that the donor is a suitable candidate then the person's driver's license is checked to see if the person is a registered donor."The driver's license is a legal document," says Nathan. "We will talk to the family, but the family cannot go back on the person's wishes. Often in two out of three cases where the person is not a donor, the families still agree to donation. People are very generous in what is often the worst time of their lives."This region is amazing," Nathan said. "We have the largest number of potential donors in the U.S. and possibly the world. We have also been the leading region in actual donations for over 20 years. These are neighbors helping neighbors. I like to stress that."Nathan said that Act 102 has been so successful in Pennsylvania that it is now the federal standard for transplant donor screening.Gift of Life has 45 full-time transplant coordinators that work 24/7 at the 129 hospitals in the region. The group on average screens 40,000 death calls per year, of that number about 3,000 are on ventilators at or near brain death. The transplant coordinators will personally screen every one of those 3,000 patients for transplant suitability. Of that group only 750 to 800 are suitable candidates for transplant donations and only about 500 become actual donors, which equates to about 2 percent of the deaths in the region. In 2015 there were 482 donors.Each donor can save up to eight recipients. A donor can contribute two kidneys, two lungs, heart, liver, pancreas and intestines.The heart is the last organ to be harvested and the one that has the shortest survival time outside the body. Often the heart is flown to the transplant center. Other organs may survive much longer.Tissue donations may come from donors who died other than brain death. There are up to 40 different potential tissue donations.An organ donor who is also a tissue donor could potentially save or help 50 recipients.Gift of Life services are free for the donor family. For information go to

www.donors1.org.Nathan said Pennsylvania has nearly 4.5 million drivers who have chosen to be potential organ donors by selecting that option on their driver's license."I would love to see all Pennsylvanians make it their New Year's resolution to make the selection," Nathan said.