Southwest Transplant Alliance

"With the condition I have, a kidney transplant would be the next step for me," he said. "I hope it doesn't come to that, because this is bad enough."

Pam Silvestre, spokeswoman for the Southwest Transplant Alliance, said, "Kidneys represent the organ of greatest need across all ethnicities. (And), interestingly, the percentage of multicultural kidney transplant recipients is virtually identical to the percentage on the waiting list, just over 60 percent, which demonstrates the fairness of organ distribution."

According to the Southwest Transplant Alliance, a nonprofit organ and tissue recovery organization based in Dallas, the message about the importance of donating organs is paying off.

"Latinos and African-Americans combine to account for nearly half of the donors in Texas and for more than half of the state's organ candidates and recipients," Silvestre said. "Texas' minority communities benefit directly from the generosity of their own, with people of color accounting for just over 50 percent of kidney recipients."

Hispanics account for 48 percent of people waiting on a kidney transplant, while blacks and Anglos each make up about 25 percent of those on the list.

Silvestre said El Pasoans have responded well to requests for organ donations about donation in El Paso hospitals said yes to donation at consistently high rates, across ethnicities," she said. "Area consent rates among Latinos (55 percent) were nearly the same as those among (Anglos, 62 percent)."

Paula Duran should know. She works for Southwest Transplant Alliance, and asks the families with deceased relatives to donate the organs. Because organ tissue breaks down quickly, time is critical.

"My aunt was 42 when she died in 2000," Duran said. "Our family donated her liver and both kidneys. Three different organ recipients were able to benefit from the organs."

As a result of the experience, Duran and a dozen of her family members enrolled in the alliance's statewide registry to become organ donors.

The Amigo Kidney Foundation in El Paso will have a golf tournament Sept. 7 to raise money for kidney patients, said Frank Lopez, who is on the foundation's organizing committee.

"The funds we raise will be used to pay for transportation, medications, food, utilities and other supplies for people with severe kidney problems or who are kidney transplant patients," he said. "Anyone can participate in the tournament."

Ericka Pacheco, 35, whose diabetes was diagnosed when she was 19, is a dialysis patient. Through a social worker's referral, she was able to receive assistance for food from the Amigo Kidney Foundation.

"I really appreciate what they were able to do for me," she said. "My father was on dialysis before he received a kidney transplant four years ago. My doctor has talked to me about a transplant, and I am hoping to gather enough resources so I can get on the waiting list, too. I was unable to do this before because I did not have health insurance."

Silvestre says that donating organs can save lives. Nationally, more than 90,000 people are on a waiting list for an organ.

"Whenever someone says yes to donation, it's something to celebrate," she said.

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