Encourages Other African-Americans To Donate

BY DANIEL GAITAN | daniel@lifemattersmedia.org

Vicki Olds is using her daughter’s death to familiarize the African-American community with the benefits of organ donation.

Working with Illinois-based procurement organization Gift of Hope, Olds hopes to dispel myths and misconceptions about the practice.

When Olds’ teenage daughter died in a drowning accident this June, she decided to honor her daughter’s wishes by donating her organs to people in serious need.

“The worst day of my life was the day my daughter passed,” said Olds, who lives in Hazel Crest, Ill. Soon after doctors pronounced the death of 18-year-old Domonique “Nikki” Smith, she met with Gift of Hope specialists.

“They made me feel very comfortable,” Olds told Life Matters Media. “It is a very hard decision to make, especially moments after they tell you that your daughter has passed. In less than an hour, we were having the conversation.” She knew Smith was an organ donor, because they discussed it when she got her driver’s license.

African-Americans Remain Cautious

However, many African-Americans are skeptical of organ donation and worry that “doctors will prematurely declare death to procure organs” for rich or white people, according to findings published in journal Clinical Transplantation in 2013. Last year, only 16 percent of all deceased donors were African-American.

Marion Shuck, Gift of Hope’s community affairs manager, told LMM that she believes the sadistic Tuskegee syphilis experiment on African-Americans between 1932 and 1972, along with historic disparities in health care access, have contributed to what she called widespread “mistrust of the system.”

To change minds, Shuck and Olds are working on the “Lasting Legacy” media campaign. It will use Olds’ experience, along with stories from other African-Americans, to show how organ donation benefits their community.

It is a very hard decision to make, especially moments after they tell you that your daughter has passed.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, African-Americans make up the largest group of minorities in need of a transplant, partly because they have higher rates of diabetes and high blood pressure than whites. These conditions can increase risk of organ failure.

“It is crucially important to show such stories to the African-American community, which is disproportionately impacted by the ever increasing need for organ donations,” said Jack Lynch, director of community affairs, in a statement. “Those needs have increased more than ten-fold during my tenure at Gift of Hope.”

More than 5,000 Illinois residents are waiting for transplants; more than 30 percent are African-American.

Friend Given Smith’s Heart

Olds comes from a family of organ donors and said she did not believe her daughter would receive less care because she was a donor. As an evangelical Christian, she was taught that donation is a blessing.

“When you die, you bury the body and your soul goes to heaven,” Olds said. “I honestly believe my baby’s soul left her body in that pool. When her body came to the emergency room it was just that: her body.”

Within days of her death, Smith’s heart was given to Tanesha Basham, a close family friend and mother of three who was in dire need of a transplant. Another friend of the family received one of her kidneys.

“It’s hard to put into words how I feel,” said Olds, who has been a friend to Basham’s mother for more than three decades. “We are family; they are the siblings I’ve never had.”

Olds said she believes it was a “miracle of God” for Smith’s heart to be a match for both Basham and the recipient of her daughter’s kidney.

“We prayed and we prayed hard,” Olds said. “They said that it was a one-in-a-million chance that she was a 100 percent match. I cried tears of joy and knew it was nothing but God. It doesn’t happen unless it’s in God’s hands.”