Nearly 300 Rhode Islanders are on the United Network for Organ Sharing’s (UNOS) organ transplant waiting list, the majority of them in need of a kidney.

Nationwide UNOS has 121,818 individuals, of all ages, genders and races awaiting a transplant and every 10 minutes someone else is added to the list.

From January to October in 2015, only 25,768 transplant surgeries were performed. With only 12,509 in that same timeframe, UNOS is unable to keep up with the far larger waiting list. Nearly 22 people from the national waiting list die every day, unable to receive an inevitable life saving transplant surgery.

One can only assume it is a bittersweet moment for transplant recipients, for although they are more than likely about to receive a lifesaving operation, they also must realize that these organs often come with a price, the death of someone else. And yet, those organ donors,in their death have the potential to save the lives of eight separate individuals, according to UNOS.

Earlier this week the Beacon reported on Mike Mooty, who was lucky enough to bypass the national registry because his older sister, Barbara Blanchette, donated a live kidney. The majority of transplant surgeries – 59.2 percent – are kidney transplants. Both are still healthy 25 years after the surgery. The siblings openly speak in favor of organ donations. Mooty talks of its lifesaving qualities and Blanchette about how she is personally rewarded for having been able to save her brother’s life.

Despite the obvious need, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources claimed that both living and deceased donors have remained constant. This disparity leaves UNOS unable to keep up with the increasing number of patients desperate for a transplant.

Sadly, organ donation is a conversation typically saved for those individuals and their families in the crux of medical concerns, those who are in need, just added to the waiting list, and made pessimistic by the long list of names ahead of them.

Many strive to make a difference in this world no matter how small, and registering as an organ donor is an easy yet undeniable way to ensure that even in death they have the potential to save lives.

Blanchette said that as a live donor she has been able to wake up every day in peace knowing she has made a lasting contribution to society. For the past 25 years she has witnessed all the lives that Mooty has touched, changed for the better, as a husband, father, uncle, grandfather and teacher. She has had a part in changing those same lives by ensuring Mooty was alive to do so.