Schumer plan to use Net for organs search

By Lauren Rubin
The Daily News, March 12, 2001

Citing a record number of New Yorkers awaiting life-saving organ transplants, Sen. Chuck Schumer yesterday announced a plan to use the Internet to increase and speed up organ donations.

Schumer's legislation would create a national organ-donation registry - an electronic database that could make almost instant matches between potential donors and patients, he said .

"New York is in the midst of' an organ crisis, the likes of which we have never seen," the New York Democrat said at his midtown office, "The number of patients desperately seeking lifesaving organs grows every single day".

At least 75,000 Americans are on waiting lists for organs. About 6,500 Citv and Long Island residents are awaiting organ transplants --- a nearly threefold increase since 1991,

Two people per week die at New York hospitals while awaiting organ transplants. said Dr. Lewis Teperman, head of the New York Organ Donor Network and Director of Transplantation at NYU Medical Center.

Schumer said his proposal would enable patients across the country to access information on available organs via the Internet and provide an online registry for potential donors.

More important, he said, the system would allow state officials in charge of making matches to quickly search and locate possible donors.

Hospital officials currently are required to notify state officials when a patient dies to find out if the patient was an organ donor, a process that can be extremely time-consuming.

Under Schumer's proposal, it would cost up to $30 million to set up and run the database - money that would be well-spent, said Richard Rodriguez.

"The demand is greater than the supply," said Rodriguez, a 54-year-old fireman from Yonkers, whose brother Robert died two years ago from failure to get a liver transplant. "No matter how sick he was, there was always someone who was sicker. It's Russian roulette."

Celina and Jose Lopez of Long Island know first hand how a tragedy can help save lives. The organs of their 17-year-old son Paul were donated to five people after he was killed by a drunk driver in 1998.

"Our son still continues to live on in these people." Said Celina Lopez.

Daily News Monday, March 12, 2001