Logan Boulet. (Humboldt Broncos)

By Jaryn Vecchio

Organ Donations

Green Shirt Day continuing to have positive impact in province, nearly 21,000 on organ donor registry

Apr 7, 2023 | 10:00 AM

Nearly 21,000 residents in the province have signed up to be an organ donor over the past two and a half years.

Apr. 7 is ‘Green Shirt’ Day which was created as a tribute to Logan Boulet, who died in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash. He ended up saving the lives of several people after he passed away since he was an organ donor.

In an email, Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Health said its Organ and Tissue Donation (OTD) Registry, which was launched in 2020, has added quite a few names over the years because of Boulet and ‘Green Shirt’ Day.

In 2022, they launched an awareness campaign asking people to become a donor with over 1,400 doing so. Unsurprisingly, April was one of their busier months as they saw a 570 per cent increase in registrations when compared to March. According to Givelifesask.ca, the registry sees its best levels every year in April.

The Ministry is encouraging everyone to sign up as just one organ can save the lives of eight people.

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Meanwhile, in Saskatchewan, only adult kidney transplants are done.

From 2018-19 to the end of 2022, there has been an average of 35 transplants done per year, with the highest being in 2019-20 as 51 were performed. Over the past five years, an average of 23 people per year travel to other provinces to receive a transplant.

As of Feb. 28, there were 50 people on the province’s waitlist. Also, 499 people in Saskatchewan were living with a donated organ as of Dec. 31, 2022.

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Jaryn.Vecchio@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow