BARNSLEY Hospital is encouraging residents to sign up to the organ donor register, as part of the Be a Hero campaign.
The campaign was launched by Leeds Teaching Hospitals to encourage people to sign the register and help spread the word to others.
Only around a third of people in the UK have signed up, with more than 10,000 people currently in need of a transplant. One in three patients in need of a transplant will die waiting.
Last year over 100 people in Yorkshire donated an organ after their death. The average waiting time for an organ donation is 222 days, one of the longest waits in the UK, and there are currently over 800 people in Yorkshire waiting for an organ donation.
Richard Jenkins, Medical Director at Barnsley Hospital, said: “The Be a Hero campaign is incredibly important and we want the people of Barnsley to understand how their decision to sign up to the donor register could have an extraordinary impact on somebody’s life.”
The people of Barnsley are being encouraged to share real life stories about their experiences of organ donation to inspire others to join the donor register.
