Good Morning Delmarva discusses Donate Life Month

47ABC – April is Donate Life Month!

It’s a time to bring awareness to the need for donors for kidney transplants and its importance.

It’s also a great way to celebrate all the donors who have given apart of themselves to help another.

We sat down with Peter Burke, a medical director at Christiana Care that works with the National Kidney Foundation serving Maryland and Delaware.

Burke shared more with us about kidney transplants and why they are needed.

He says dialysis treatments are growing in number in the U.S.

Kidney transplants are the best treatment but has an extensive list.

With dialysis, you could be away for up to 12 hours a day for treatment and the survival rate on dialysis is much lower than with a transplant.

Burke says there are two type of transplant options. A deceased donor or a live donor.

He says they prefer live donations for reasons such as life expectancy.

But there’s simply not enough living donations for those in need in the U.S.

To learn more about Donate Life Month or the process of becoming a donor for kidney transplants — you can visit www.kidneymd.org