BIRMINGHAM JOINS STATE , UAB TO OFFER PAID LEAVE FOR LIVING DONORS
INNOVATION
For people interested in sharing the gift of life through living organ or bone marrow donation , Alabama is a great place to be .
In 2017 , UAB began offering four weeks of paid living donor leave for eligible employees who volunteer as living organ donors ( for kidney or partial liver donations ) and one week for bone marrow donors . The same year , the state of Alabama adopted a similar policy for permanent employees with at least one year of state service , and the city of Birmingham followed suit in 2019 for its employees .
UAB is one of the three largest kidney transplant centers in the nation and has performed more procedures than any other program in the nation since 1987 .
“ As home to one of the largest kidney transplant centers in the nation — one that has performed more living donor transplants than any other program in the United States — we believe UAB has an opportunity and the heart to support the patient care mission and the needs of our employees and their families ,” said UAB Chief Human Resource Officer Alesia Jones . “ This paid donor leave benefit enables us to do both .”
According to UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute Director Jayme Locke , MD , more than 92,000 people nationally await a kidney transplant , but only about 23,400 kidney transplants were performed in 2019 . This disparity continues to drive a major organ shortage . According to the United Network for Organ Sharing , about 1,350 people were awaiting a kidney transplant in Alabama as of August 2020 .
UAB Medicine transplant leaders and city of Birmingham officials gather in 2019 to celebrate the city ’ s passage of a paid leave policy for living organ donors .
decision of our living donors ,” Dr . Locke says . “ It has set the standard for municipalities across the nation , and it is my hope that other cities similarly support organ donation . Supporting our living donors helps give the gift of life . Under the leadership of Mayor Woodfin , more lives will be saved through living donation .”
“ We applaud Mayor Randall Woodfin and the city of Birmingham for embracing organ donation and , in particular , for supporting the
To learn more about living organ and bone marrow donation , please visit uabmedicine . org / transplant / living-donor-program .
12 UAB CTI Report