Methodist in the Media
Methodist Jennie Edmundson Hospital, Iowa Donor Network Highlight Importance of Organ Donation
Published: April 4, 2022
In 2021, a record number of Iowans transformed lives through organ and tissue donation. Yet, the number of people who need transplants continues to outpace the number of donor organs. There are currently more than 106,000 Americans waiting for a life-saving organ transplant, and 600 of them are Iowans.
On Friday, Methodist Jennie Edmundson Hospital leadership and staff held a Donate Life Ceremony to commemorate the importance of organ donation. The event included a message from Michaela Kreitler, whose father’s organs were donated in 2020.
“The walk to the car that night was just nothing but tears and immense pain,” she wrote. “I could not stop crying. In that moment, there was a finality of knowing I would never see my dad again that left a physical pain in my heart.
“But something beautiful happened again — something that gave me just a glimmer of hope that everything was going to be OK. A young woman (an employee in scrubs) stopped me and said, ‘I was just a part of that walk — I was lined up in the hallway. Was that your dad?’ and I told her it was. She then proceeded to ask me if she could hug me, and together we cried. She, too, was moved beyond words by what she had seen and experienced being part of the hero walk. It was a beautiful moment between two strangers that I will never forget in my lifetime.”
