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Minority Groups in Need of Organ Donors

After a three-year wait, Maxine McMullen received a kidney transplant in 2004.
Photo by Elana Gordon/KCUR
After a three-year wait, Maxine McMullen received a kidney transplant in 2004.

By Elana Gordon

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-980732.mp3

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – About 3,000 people in Kansas and Missouri are waiting for a needed organ transplant. And according to the Midwest Transplant Network, minorities make up about a quarter of those on the list.

That had the transplant network recently focusing their efforts on encouraging minority communities to join the statewide organ and tissue donor registries.

Maxine McMullen is involved with the network, and spoke to a local Boys and Girls Club camp about the situation earlier this week. She has hypertension and underwent dialysis up until getting a transplant in 2004.

"I was on the waiting list for three years before I ever got a chance to receive a kidney," says McMullen. "But I know people that have been on the waiting list for over ten years."

McMullen says one challenge is there's a lot of misinformation and mistrust out there when it comes to signing up for the donor registry.

"A lot people are just not knowledgeable," says McMullen. "They believe the old myth that if I sign the card or if I sign my license someone will come after me because they need my organs."

Nationwide, minorities comprise a little over half of the some 110,000 people in need of a transplant.

The Midwest Transplant Network says the disproportionate need among minorities is partly because many conditions leading to the need for a transplant, like diabetes and hypertension, occur with greater frequency among minority populations.

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