Eye Bank Partner, Memorial Medical Center, to be Honored for Achievement in Donation

On April 9, 2013, Gift of Hope, the organ procurement organization serving the northern three-fourths of Illinois and northwest Indiana, will present an honorary plaque of recognition to Memorial Medical Center (MMC) in Springfield, IL for their outstanding donor conversion rate of 100% for a 3-year stretch. From February 2010 through November 2012, every potential organ donor at MMC consented to donation.

The result of this achievement was 67 lives saved through organ transplantation and 2,424 lives transformed by tissue donation. Furthermore, 312 people received the gift of sight, facilitated by Heartland Lions Eye Banks. In all, 2,813 people’s lives were saved or drastically improved thanks to the hard work of MMC staff, generous donors and donor families, transplant surgeons, Gift of Hope, and Heartland Lions Eye Banks.

The ceremony will take place at 12:30 p.m. at Memorial Medical Center. Gift of Hope will present hospital leadership with a green ribbon ceremony, and the event will include remarks from a representative from the Organ Donation Transplantation Alliance, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, Executive Director of Heartland Lions Eye Banks Dr. Ron Walkenbach, and Gift of Hope CEO Kevin Cmunt. Each speaker will sign the green ribbon and then a commemorative plaque will be presented to Ed Curtis, President and CEO of Memorial Health System. There will also be a video presentation as well as a procession that will visually display just how many lives MMC has touched.