îl|‘^Jurtlanò (Ob s e ru er
August 23. 2006
Page AS
T urning Two Years in to 20 >
continued
from Front
Lockett considered himself a
healthy person until he suffered a
heart attack during a Hawaiian va­
cation in the spring of 1984.
A lw ays thin and in good
health, he was unprepared to rec­
ognize the signs of heart disease.
Doctors treated him with medica­
tion in Hawaii and the five-day
trip turned into a month, but by
January 1987 he suffered a sec­
ond heart attack. Number two
came only days after his deterio­
rating heart forced him to retire
from his job at the Bonneville
Power Administration.
At that point, walking from his
Ijedroom to his living room left
Lockett breathless.
Doctors told him a bypass
Wouldn't help and gave him two
/ears to live. Soon his youngest
daughter, LaLita, a University of
Oregon undergraduate, mentioned
the possibility of a heart transplant.
“A transplant at that time was
something I read about happening
to other people,” he said.
Things began to move quickly,
doctors ran tests to determine if
he qualified. In February 1987,
Lockett joined the OHSU waiting
photo by S arah B i . ount /T he P ortland O bserver
list. Just days later, he sat awake Luther Lockett o f Portland became the 25th heart transplant recipient at Oregon Health Science University in 1987. The hospital
s
in the same living room chair he has performed hundreds o f heart transplants since then.
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sits in today when a phone call
came, and a voice said ' how soon
can you get here, we think we
have a heart for you."
Lockett and his wife Marie made
a beeline for Oregon Health Sci­
ences University.
"I got up there and they had a
heart for me and it’s been working
good ever since,” he said.
He became the 25lh heart trans­
plant recipient at OHSU, which has
now performed 473 heart trans­
plants since 1985.
Lockett doesn’t know much
about the organ donor who saved
his life. In the mid-1980s, when the
procedure was in its infancy stages,
doctors didn’t promote contact
between the families of organ do­
nors and their recipients.
Lockett only knows there was an
auto accident. Two young people
on a Saturday night near Vancouver;
Wash.
He and Marie never considered
donating their organs before, but;
circumstances changed their out-;
look.
Now that Lockett celebrates his
two birthdays every year, plus thaf
of that of a third grandchild he may;
have never been able to see, he is
strong advocate of educating the
local African Americans and oth­
ers about organ donations.
Health Problems Create Need for Donors
Healthy
lifestyle would
reduce impact
S arah B lount
T he P ortland O bserver
Organ donation carries the
stigm a o f fear, mystery and re­
ligious debates, but for the Afri­
can American community, these
issues com bined with health
problem s have created a des­
perate
need for donors.
• • ‘III
The num ber o f black and m i­
nority patients who can’t find
by
organ donors has risen in the
past 10 years, and now African
Americans make up more than
a quarter o f the 92,(XX) Am eri­
cans on waiting lists.
The
fe d e ra l
p ro g ra m
MOTTEP, or the National Mi­
nority Organ and Tissue Trans­
plant Education Program, is the
first of its kind in the nation to
address the critical need for or­
gan donors while prom oting a
healthy lifestyle that prevents
the need for transplants.
Founder and principal inves­
tigator Dr. Clive C allendar be­
gan work addressing minority
Smooth Jazz Is Here!
105.9
donors in 1982, and said num ­
bers have tripled though various
com m unity education and em ­
powerm ent programs.
‘‘W e’ve seen minority donors
increase from 15 percent when
we started M OTTEP in 1995,
to 28.5 percent in 2003,” he
tend to believe it.”
As a result o f their outreach,
Callendar said past public fears
and m isperceptions aren’t as
troublesom e. M inorities are
well-represented organ donors
- as a quarter o f the population
they account for 28.5 percent of
------ all donors. Now the real
challenge, and the rea­
son there is still such
desperate need, is a dis­
proportionate amount of
health problems afflict­
ing African Americans.
- Dr. Clive Callendar, National
This group is more
Minority Organ and Tissue Transplant 1
lik e ly
th an
o th e r
ethnicities to carry g e­
said.
netically predisposed diseases,
P ro ject d ire c to r N orm an like high blood pressure and dia­
Brooks said they identified sig­ betes, and at higher rates.
nificant obstacles for minority
“ It'd be a great difficulty to
organ donors: religious beliefs meet the need for donors, ac­
(although all the m ajorreligions cording to our p o p u latio n ,"
support organ donations) fear Callendar said. "T hat’s the big­
that doctors w on’t work as hard gest challenge o f all, and it’s
to save a donor’s life, the fear why we have a two-pronged
that a minority’sorgans will only mission. We want to at least
go to white recipients, and dis­ level o ff or stabilize these health
trust o f healthcare profession­ risks.”
als.
JudithTrujillo, managerof pro­
Brooks said African Am eri­ grams at Oregon Donor Pro­
c a n s o fte n re fe r to th e gram, said there is an increased
“Tuskegee Incident”, a disturb­ need for kidney transplants in
ing act known formally as the African American and Hispanic
Public Health Service Syphilis com m unities. Kidney disease is
S tu d y , w h ich fo llo w ed the often a direct reflection o f dia­
pro g resso f untreated syphilis in betes.
nearly 4(X) poor black men in
"The growth o f this need out­
M acon County, Ga. from 1932 strips the num ber o f donors,”
to 1972.
she said.
Brooks also noted the media
At one time the Oregon Do-;
in creating negative perceptions nor Program partnered with the
with stories about organ dona­ National Kidney Foundation o f
tion, including,he2(X)2 film “John Oregon to create the Family o f
Q ",
in
w h ich
D en zel O ne coalition. This A frican
W ashington's character takes American outreach addressed
an em ergency room staff and the need for donors as well a$
patients hostage until hospital kidney disease prevention.
Z
doctors agree to conduct a heart
A, this point that partnership'
transplant for his son.
has been set aside, Trujillo said,-
“ I think that film that really but noted that an outreach pro-;
speaks to the black com m u­ gram for the fast-growing His-;
nity,” Brooks said. "People re­ panic com m unity is in the brain-Z
late to things they've seen, and storming phase.
We want to at least
level off or stabilize
these health risks.
School Grounds Help Coming
Portland's Only Smooth Jazz Station
kijz.com
School grounds throughout
Portland will get a makeover from 9
a.m. to noon on Saturday. Aug. 26
at Portland Public Schools cam­
puses, thanks to thousands of vol­
unteers participating in Community
Care Day.
Working through the volunteer
action organizations SOLV and
Hands on Portland, community
groups and individual volunteers
will weed, rake, sweep and spread
bark dust at more than 50 of the
district’s 85 school sites.
Following the cleanups, a thank-
you reception for volunteers will
run from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. at
Tubman Middle School, 2231 NZ
Flint Ave., with entertainment pro­
vided by Radio Disney.
PPS
has
only
two
groundskeepers because of bud­
get cuts. Maintenance on lawns
and gardens is sacrificed in order to
spend limited resources on school
programs.
Registration and information on
the volunteer sites is available at
solv.org. Additional information m
available from Matt Shelby. PP§
community engagement specialist,
a,503-916-3027.