Hispanic Tailored Transplant Center Sees Increase in Hispanic Organ Donation

I previously blogged that Hispanics have a lower organ donation rate than Americans do as a whole. However, a Chicago hospital reports that its transplant center has seen kidney transplants for Hispanic patients almost double in the last five years.

The hospital has the only transplant center in the United States tailored to the unique needs of Hispanic patients, and the center conducts business entirely in Spanish. Since the center’s beginning in December 2006, the number of Hispanic patient kidney transplants has increased to forty-one in 2010 from only twenty-two in 2005. The center will include liver operations after it expands.

See Claudia Torrens, Hispanics Get a Hand in Organ Donations, The Associated Press, Mar. 29, 2011.