Top U.S. Donor Hospital Credits Grand Rapids' Culture of Giving

Leaders of a Grand Rapids, Michigan hospital credit "a commitment to organ donation" in the community and at the hospital with making their center the top U.S. hospital last year for organ and tissue donation.

Spectrum Health's Butterworth Hospital in 2001 accounted for 40 of Michigan's 219 cadaver organ donors (18 percent of the state total) and 45 of the state's 708 tissue donors (6 percent). The hospital has been the top donor hospital in Michigan for the past 18 years.

Speaking at the North American Transplant Coordinators Organizaiton (NATCO) annual meeting in Washington, DC, Dr. James Hoogeboom, an intensive care physician at Butterworth, said "what makes this program successful is the commitment to organ donation in the community and here at the hospital."

Bill Leeder of the Gift of Life/Transplantation Society of Michigan, the organ procurement agency serving Grand Rapids, also attributes the high donor rate to a culture of giving in the city.

"This is a community highly motivated to donate," he said. "The reasons donation is successful here are the same reasons why the Chamber of Commerce says you should live and work here."