Stellies students create 'Life Pod' to save hundreds through organ donation
This Life Pod – a first of its kind in Africa – will provide life support to consented organ donors to keep their organs viable until they can be harvested for transplantation.
Clarence Ford speaks to Save7 President Jonty Wright and Suhayl Khalfey, manager of Save7’s Tygerberg Branch.
A group of Stellenbosch University medical students are on a mission to establish a specialised intensive care unit (ICU) for organ donors at Tygerberg Hospital.
The students' initiative, Save7 is named after the fact that humans have seven life-saving organs which can potentially save seven lives through organ donation.
Save7 was born from a combination of personal experiences with limited resources for organ donating patients and recipients.
"Save7 was born out of a problem which is that we're running out of bed space at Tygerberg Hospital and it's especially prevalent now that we have such rampant budget cuts. It means that when we've got a potential donor who is consented and on their way to saving seven lives - but we need to keep that ICU bed for them for 12 to 36 hours but ICU beds being as limited as they are - the bed will be used if it's empty for so long. So what that means is that potential donors get lost and those seven people who were going to be saved often don't."
- Jonty Wright, Save7
The Save7 project offers possible organ donors 'Life Pods' which is a space of their own at Tygerberg Hospital.
These 'Life Pods' are dedicated units intended to give the family a room, comfort and privacy throughout the procedure, freeing up ICU bed space and saving seven lives, "it's really a win-win", adds Wright.
'Life Pods' aim to significantly boost the hospital's capacity for posthumous organ transplant, potentially saving up to 100 lives annually.
This 'Life Pod' - a first of it's kind in Africa - represents a major advancement in the fight to save lives through organ donation and provide life support to consented organ donors to keep their organs viable until it can be harvested for transplantation.
For more information about Save7 or on how to become an organ donor, visit their website at save7.org, or connect with them on Instagram @savesevenlives or LinkedIn @save7.
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