United States Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D - Hawaii) introduced legislation, the Organ Donor Leave Act, to extend the amount of leave in each calendar year available to federal workers who serve as living organ donors from 7 days to 30 days. The bill is a straightforward way to ensure that federal employees who serve as an organ donor have sufficient time to recover from an organ transplant operation.
Akaka is the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services, which has jurisdiction over civil service issues.
"I am delighted to be joined by Senator Bill Frist, one of the nation's leading transplant surgeons and the only active surgeon in Congress, as well as Senators John Edwards, Ted Stevens, Carl Levin, Paul Sarbanes, and Dick Durbin in offering this bill," Akaka said. "It is my hope that, with such distinguished support from both sides of the aisle, the Senate will quickly enact this important legislation."
In most instances, an organ transplant operation and post-operative recovery time for a living donor is generally six to eight weeks. In order to address the disparity between the available leave a federal employee may take for an organ donation and the average recovery time, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) assisted in the drafting of this legislation to increase the amount of time that may be used for organ donation to 30 days. The amount of leave for a bone marrow donation would remain at seven days because experience shows that a week is considered adequate recovery time from bone marrow donations.
"Since 1954, when the first kidney transplant was performed, there have been hundreds of patients who have received successful transplants from living donors," Akaka stated. "Unfortunately, there are not enough organs available and over 55,000 Americans currently wait for a life-saving organ. There are certain organs, such as a single kidney, a lobe of a lung, a segment of the liver, or a portion of the pancreas, which may be transplanted from a living donor. These operations can reduce the mortality of small children needing liver transplants, help another person breath, or free a dialysis patient from daily treatment."
According to the University of Southern California Liver Transplant Program, "With living donors, liver transplants can be performed electively and before patients get extremely ill, thus leading to better outcomes. Another advantage to this approach is the emotional satisfaction donors share with recipients when a life is saved."
"My bill has the strong support of the American Transplantation Society, the nation's largest professional transplant organization, representing over 1,400 physicians, surgeons, and scientists," Akaka noted. In a letter expressing support for the Organ Donor Leave Act, the AST noted: "...a lack of leave time has served as a significant impediment and disincentive for individuals willing to share the gift-of-life. This important initiative addresses the disparities between leave time and recovery time." According to AST, the bill would give "...donors the added assurance that they will be granted an adequate amount of time to recuperate from the life-saving process that they undertake voluntarily."
