CONTACT:
Richard Puff
Albany Medical Center, Albany, NY
518-262-3421
[email protected]
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE: 2:30 p.m., Thursday, October 16, 1997
ALBANY, N.Y., October 16, 1997 ≠Six women who each have faced the death of a child and made the decision to donate their organs for transplantation have formed the countryπs first organization of mothers to provide counseling and support to other families confronted with similar tragic circumstances.
Called Mothers of Donors ã or MOD Squad, as they refer to themselves ã the women provide comfort, counseling and information about organ donation to families whose loved ones have just died. Conceived and coordinated by the Albany Medical Collegeπs Center for Donation and Transplant, it is the only program of its kind in the country, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).
≥I feel thereπs a great need for this service,≤ said Margaret Syrett of Albany, whose 6-year-old son Rickey died in 1980 due to complications from a arterial venous malformation. ≥Once youπve been there you can empathize like no one else can.≤
Syrett also is the bereavement coordinator at Hospice of Schenectady and is co-leader of Compassionate Friends, a national self-help group for bereaved parents. She is joined in the MOD Squad by Dee Santandrea of Colonie, whose 22-year-old son Tony died in 1995 after an assault in Plattsburgh; Lillian Somma of Saratoga Springs, whose 16-year-old son Scott was killed in a 1993 automobile accident; Vicki Crosier of Berne, whose son Kyle died at 16 in a 1979 car accident in her driveway; and Wendy Vaniglia of Ballston Lake, whose daughter Candice, 13, died in 1994 after a lengthy illness. Karen Dunham of Richford, whose 16-year-old son Jason died in a 1993 car accident, will assist families in the Binghamton area. It is expected that the program will expand soon to include mothers in Utica, Kingston, Plattsburgh and Cooperstown.
Fred Geiger, regional administrator for UNOS, said donor families around the country have become involved in efforts to encourage organ donation, but the MOD Squad is unique. He said the training the mothers have undergone, as well as their life experiences, legitimize the program.
≥I think itπs excellent in concept,≤ Geiger said. ≥If it goes well, and it gets feedback on ways to develop and modernize, which is what any program would need, then it just could be a model for the rest of the country.≤
≥It takes a long time to recover from the death of a child,≤ said Crosier, a co-leader of Compassionate Friends and an educator for the Center for Donation and Transplant for the past 10 years. Her advice for grieving families: ≥The hole in your life never goes away. But you donπt have to grieve forever.≤
Only a parent who has lost a child can tell another parent the feelings that a trip to the bank, park or supermarket will bring, which is what makes the program so unique, Crosier said. ≥When you go to the grocery store and you go down the peanut butter aisle and you realize you donπt have anyone to buy it for,≤ those times are the most difficult, she said.
≥The families need somebody to reaffirm what has happened and what is
going to happen in a very comfortable and positive way,≤ said Frank Taft, director of the Center for Donation and Transplant and MOD Squad creator. ≥It will help the families by having the mothers there as a support mechanism. Itπs going to show people that death is a part of life ã itπs part of the life cycle.≤
The mothers, who have undergone several hours of training that included hospital visits with other center staff members, are on-call on a four-week rotation. If the Center for Donation and Transplant is called to a hospital in the middle of the night to discuss organ procurement with a grieving family, the mothers are called to assist.
The patientπs doctor will usually discuss donation with the family, after which officials from the center are introduced. Once the decision to donate or to not donate is made, the MOD Squad member remains with the family. The mothers are not there to convince the family to donate their loved oneπs organs. Rather, they help by holding a hand, listening to a parentπs concern or perhaps sharing a personal experience.
≥Weπre not requesters. Weπre there in a support role,≤ said Crosier, who is the only group member with past counseling experience.
In the past, those trips to the hospitals to meet grieving families have meant getting coffee, entertaining children, explaining death to young people or making phone calls to family members.
The mothers said that donating their childπs organs has helped them recover from their tragedies. Itπs a comfort knowing that a childπs eyes or heart or kidneys live on in someone else, they said. Today, Crosier serves in many capacities to help families accept organ donation and deal with the loss of their loved ones. Much of her time, though, is spent with her two surviving children and their six children, who live next door to Crosier and her husband.
≥I can do so much for them,≤ she said, of her children and grandchildren. ≥This I do for Kyle.≤
The Center for Donation and Transplant at Albany Medical College coordinates the retrieval of donor organs from 40 hospitals throughout northeastern and central New York state and western Vermont and Massachusetts. The Albany Medical Center serves as the regional transplant center, providing nearly 90 kidney transplants annually, in addition to kidney-pancreas, bone marrow and corneal transplants.
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