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Media Kit & Fact Sheets | News Releases | Position Statements
Donate Life Illinois News
This section is your resource for news, fact sheets, publications and resources in providing information about organ and tissue donation or covering stories as a member of the media. Check back often for updates.
Who we are
Who we are not
What we can provide
The right terminology
- Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network is the federally designated organ procurement organization serving the northern three-quarters of Illinois and northwest Indiana. We are responsible for coordinating donation at the 183 hospitals in our designated donation services area.
- We are federally designated to evaluate potential donors for medical suitability; discuss donation with family members; coordinate the donation process; and educate hospital professionals on their responsibilities to identify and refer potential donors for evaluation.
- We provide free support services and follow-up information to families of organ and tissue donors, and facilitate any communication that a donor family and recipient may request with one another.
- We provide education programs at no charge to the 11.7 million residents in our service area about donation and how to register as donors.
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- We are not a hospital or transplant center, although we work closely with all area hospitals and transplant centers in our donation service area.
- We usually do not have direct contact with patients currently waiting for organ transplants, unless those patients are active with our Volunteer Network. However, we can usually locate contacts for you through our colleagues at Illinois’ eight transplant centers.
- We coordinate organ and tissue donations from deceased donors. Organ donations from living donors are coordinated at a transplant center.
- We do not register patients on the national waiting list: a transplant candidate must be placed on the national waiting list through his or her transplant program.
- We do not maintain the list or oversee the allocation of donated organs. The United Network for Organ Sharing maintains the national waiting list and allocation when donated organs become available.
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- We can provide local and/or national donation statistics and information. We can provide waiting list totals, as well as demographic profiles of donors and recipients locally and nationally (e.g., how many children under the age of 12 are registered for liver transplants in Illinois).
- We can provide interview contacts with transplant experts, patients waiting for transplant, recipients and family members of donors in Illinois and northwest Indiana.
- Our leadership and clinical staff can comment on local and national issues on organ and tissue donation. Many also serve as elected leaders, task force chairs and committee members for the United Network for Organ Sharing, the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations, Donate Life America, the Illinois Secretary of State Organ/Tissue Donation Advisory Panel, the Illinois Coalition on Donation and other state and national organizations.
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- The words "harvest" and "cadaveric donor" are outdated and considered insensitive. The organ and tissue procurement and transplantation field uses the terms "recover" and "deceased donor.”
- Accurately refer to the ventilator or mechanical support, instead of using the vague term “life support”. A deceased donor remains on a ventilator in order to maintain organ function until organ recovery can take place. It is incorrect to report the deceased donor is on life support, which gives the false impression that the donor is "kept alive" so that organs can be donated.
- "OPO" stands for organ procurement organization, one of the nation’s 58 not-for-profit organizations federally designated to coordinate donation.
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Call our Public Relations staff 24/7 at 630/758-2600.
After business hours, ask to have us paged. Or, e-mail us for response within one business day.
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