About 15 people gathered inside of the Community Room in the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital (MVH) on Tuesday afternoon to take in words from state healthcare officials and listen to a moderated discussion with organ donation recipients from the Island.
MVH organized the event Legacy of Life alongside New England Donor Services, a nonprofit that facilitates organ and tissue donation in the New England area. The event occurred in the midst of National Multiethnic Donor Awareness Month, which raises awareness for organ and tissue donation and promotes diversity in organ donor registration.
Dr. Karen Casper, medical director of the MVH Emergency Department, emphasized the impact that organ donation has on its recipients.
“As a small Island community, we often think about how we depend on one another,” Casper said. “Organ donation is an extraordinary example of that connection. One person’s decision to give can profoundly change or even save the life of someone they’ve never met.”
Moderated by Dr. Lorna Chambers-Andrade, health chair for the Martha’s Vineyard branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the teary discussion highlighted the personal experiences of both organ transplant recipients and the mother of a deceased organ donor.
Connecticut resident Carolyn Fletcher lost her 16 year-old son in a car accident. While waiting in the emergency room, she recalled how upset she felt when a hospital staff member mentioned the idea of organ donation.
“I lost it on her because I’m thinking you need to go save my son and not ask me about organ transplantation,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher, however, ultimately changed her mind and her son’s heart, liver, pancreas, and kidneys were procured. Fletcher said that her son would have supported the decision.
“I knew that if I could speak to him and say, ‘What do you want Mom to do?’ He would say, ‘Save somebody,’” Fletcher said. “I said, ‘I just need to be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud.’”
Fletcher urged the room to have conversations with their relatives about organ donation.
“Please speak to your family and discuss organ transplantation donation because you don’t want to be in the situation that I was, in the midst of a tragedy trying to make that decision,” Fletcher said. “It’s very important that your family understands what your wishes are … especially to the African-American community because we don’t talk about it.”
After six attempts, Island resident Paul Munafo finally underwent a successful liver transplant to treat his Hepatitis C in 2014. Following the procedure, Munafo, who regards his transplant day as “a second birthday,” wrote letters to his donor’s family twice a year before finally receiving a response from his donor’s wife.
“She said that it took her 10 years of missing her husband to finally get that out,” Munafo said. “I was eternally grateful.”
Munfao, who still keeps in touch with the family, expressed his deep gratitude for his donor’s wife.
“Every day I get up, and I thank God for the life and the sacrifice that a wife made to say goodbye to her husband,” Munafo said. “I don’t take one minute of it for granted. I live every minute of it to the absolute fullest.”
MVH paramedic Olivia Hart received her heart transplant in 2014. Hart, who also keeps in touch with the father of her donor, Nora Blake, emphasized the emotional connection that she has to Blake.
“Every life experience I have is something I do with Nora and for Nora. My life is not just me anymore,” Hart said. “She’s with me in everything I do.”
Hart also discussed how she hopes to give back to the community as a paramedic.
“When I needed them, [the Vineyard community] definitely became my stability,” Hart said. “Now I’m transitioning into being the member that other people can rely on.”
