Newswise — For many Native Americans on South Dakota Indian reservations, the process of giving and receiving eye, organ, and tissue donations isn't widely understood. While the need for these donations remains, mistrust and conflict with traditional Lakota values keeps the number of organ donors on reservations from growing.
A joint project of the South Dakota Lions Eye Bank and the College of Nursing at South Dakota State University recently launched a three-year effort to educate Native Americans on three South Dakota reservations about the benefits of organ donation.
Assistant professor of nursing Nancy Fahrenwald was principal researcher on the project's proposal, which was submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Transplantation, in March. Approved in late August, the project was granted $170,000 for 2003-04.
The project was the brainchild of Christine Belitz, executive director of the not-for-profit eye bank. She also was principal investigator for the proposal.
"Over a three-year period, we hope to see, through our efforts, organ donation numbers rise, reducing the current waiting list of about 1,400 Native Americans waiting for transplants," Belitz says.
The project originated at the Lions Eye Band as an answer to a call by the United States Department of Health for proposals that would increase eye and organ tissue donations. Belitz forged the partnership with the SDSU College of Nursing.
"They needed to work with a university partner," Fahrenwald says. "My research area is health behavior and culture. They needed someone to do the methodology; that's how I got involved."
The project will pilot test a cultural intervention to increase donations on the Sisseton Wahpeton, Pine Ridge and Rosebud Indian reservations.
"The project will help people that don't have any idea about eye, organ and tissue donations," Fahrenwald says. "We want to raise their awareness"¦to move them along the continuum to where they'll sign up to donate and tell their family about their wishes."
The grant will fund the distribution of educational materials in schools, and at powwows, and other social events. The success of the program will be tracked through the number of donor cards completed, follow-up verification with family, and driver license designation as an organ donor.
An advisory board that includes leaders in the Lions Eye Bank and American Indian Eye Bank will oversee the project.
Cathy Ducheneaux, a patient-family liaison at Rapid City (S.D.) Regional Hospital, acted as a consultant on the project's proposal. In her current position, she works to bridge culture gaps for Native American patients who come into Rapid City Regional.
She says she will work with those who are creating program literature so that it is culturally sensitive.
She adds that there is indeed a need for donor education on the reservations. She says she has encountered Native Americans who don't know how donated organs are used or how the process works. She said that in the past, there have been rumors on the reservation that organs were being taken from bodies at the hospital without family permission.
"There's a lack of understanding," Ducheneaux says.
This lack of understanding may stem from a traditional spiritual belief in the Lakota culture that bodies must be buried intact. She says Native American patients who have limbs amputated sometimes request to take the limbs with them, so they can perform sacred ceremonies and bury them properly.
She says she understands the religious and cultural values, but stresses the continued need for donations.
"[We're trying to promote] the understanding as to what happens, how you go about getting [a donated organ]," she says. "Not that it's going to be used somewhere else, but the possibility of saving a family member."
"A great deal of the time when we are reaching out to the general public, we hear numerous stories about people not wanting to donate because they just don't understand the entire process," Belitz adds. "They aren't sure if their loved one was ever a donor or wanted to be a donor."
Concludes Belitz, "Anything that can be done to increase organ, eye and tissue donating must be done, and educating the Native Americans through a culturally sensitive intervention is the right way to start."
RSS