Providence hospitals across Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties saved 190 lives in 2022 and improved the lives of hundreds more by helping coordinate organ, eye and tissue donations from patients who couldn’t be saved.
The hospital’s team with OneLegacy, the nonprofit organ, eye and tissue recovery organization that coordinates donations and transplants among hospitals across the Western states, helps families fulfill the wishes of dying patients or assisting them in making that very difficult decision for their loved ones.
These selfless gifts resulted in 83 organ donations across Providence Southern California’s 11 hospitals, with 184 tissue donations and corneas that restored sight for 117 people. With the exception of the Kidney Transplant Center at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, Providence Southern California hospitals do not perform transplants, but care for their patients and their loved ones through the donation process.
“It takes very special nurses to care for dying patients who are to become donors, and to comfort their heartbroken loved ones,” said Daniel Kelly, chief nursing officer for Providence South Division. “I hope these families truly understand the enormous gratitude of organ, eye and tissue recipients.”
Providence is committed to teaming with OneLegacy in caring for dying patients and their families to save lives through donation, help the blind recover sight and provide skin, bone, tendons and ligaments and even heart valves through tissue donations. Skin is used to heal burns and other injuries, as well as in some surgeries.
“Each April, National Donate Life Month, we honor our donor patients and hold their grieving families in our hearts,” Kelly said.
Providence has six hospitals in Los Angeles County: Providence Holy Cross Medical Center, Mission Hills; Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center, Burbank; Providence Tarzana Medical Center; Providence Saint John’s Health Center, Santa Monica; and Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Centers in Torrance and San Pedro. In Orange County, the organization operates Providence St. Jude Medical Center, Fullerton; Providence Mission Hospital with campuses in Mission Viejo and Laguna Beach; Providence St. Joseph Hospital, Orange. Providence St. Mary Medical Center is in San Bernardino County’s town of Apple Valley. Two of those — Providence Holy Cross and Providence Mission — operate trauma centers that, unfortunately, care for fatally injured patients whose loved ones, in their grief, agree to transplant to save others.
First published in the April 15 print issue of the Burbank Leader.
