— HealthAlliance Hospital: Broadway Campus in Kingston has been recognized by a regional organ-transplant coordinating group for extraordinary support of organ donations and transplants.
HealthAlliance, a member of the Westchester Medical Center Health Network, received the 2016 Donate Life Outstanding Hospital Outreach Award from the Center for Donation & Transplant Thursday at the Donate Life Celebration Dinner at the Saratoga Hilton in Saratoga Springs.
The center, in Albany, is one of 58 federally designated nonprofit organ procurement organizations in the United States.
"The award is presented each year to a hospital that has gone above and beyond to support a culture of donation either in their own hospital or in the community," the center said in a letter to HealthAlliance Quality Specialist Brenda Relyea, HealthAlliance's liaison with the center.
Relyea said intensive care unit Director Audra Fleischman, operating room Director Jane Ulrich and their staffs deserved special recognition. "Their staffs assist in coordinating when we evaluate and procure donor organs for transplantation," she said.
Within the past year, one HealthAlliance patient donated four organs that saved five lives, Relyea said.
A single donor can save as many as eight lives by donating the heart, liver (which can be split in two), lungs (which can go to two different people but are often transplanted together), kidneys (which often go to two different people), intestines and pancreas.
The Center for Donation & Transplant's letter said the Broadway Campus had "gone to extraordinary lengths to not only support donation but [also] raise awareness of the lifesaving benefits of donation in your community through your dedication to the Donate Life: Hudson Valley volunteer group, donor family flag raisings and overwhelming daily support to CDT."
To honor patients who donate their organs or tissues or both, the Broadway Campus flies "Donate Life" flags beneath the American flag in front of the hospital for a week. Afterward, the flags are lowered, ceremonially folded and then given to the donors' families.
In Ulster County, 31.7 percent of all adults age 18 or older have joined the state's Donate Life Registry, says the New York Alliance for Donation, an advocacy and educational group. The state average is 26.7 percent. The national average is about 52 percent.
Some 10,000 people are on waiting lists for life-saving organ transplants statewide and about 121,000 people are on the federal government's national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network list.
Eighteen people typically die every day waiting for a transplant, and another name is added to the waiting list every 10 minutes. In New York state, someone dies every 15 hours waiting for an organ transplant.
About HealthAlliance, a member of the Westchester Medical Center Health Network
HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley operates a 315-hospital bed healthcare system comprising HealthAlliance Hospital: Mary's Avenue Campus and HealthAlliance Hospital: Broadway Campus in Kingston, New York, and Margaretville Hospital in Margaretville, New York. It also operates Mountainside Residential Care Center, an 82-bed facility in Margaretville. Guided by the needs of its patients and their families, HealthAlliance delivers the best healthcare of the highest value in a safe, compassionate environment; invests in innovative technologies and leading-edge therapies to advance healthcare delivery; and improves the overall health and well-being of the diverse communities it serves. Beyond serving inpatients with exceptional surgical, diagnostic and therapeutic services, HealthAlliance hospitals have teams of board-certified emergency medicine specialists available at all times to treat anyone seeking emergency medical care. As Ulster County's largest employer, HealthAlliance is committed to attracting the best-qualified medical and support staff; providing outstanding, responsive, coordinated, patient- and family-centered care; excelling in clinical outcomes and patient experiences; and ensuring patient rights, privacy and respect are honored at all times. For more information about how HealthAlliance is delivering the promise of medicine, visit hahv.org or follow Facebook.com/HealthAllianceHV or Twitter.com/HAllianceHudVal.
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