Organ Donation Pledges Hit Record High
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
The number of people who have pledged to donate their organs after death has more than doubled to 177,000 over the past year.
The Health and Welfare Ministry, Monday, reported Monday the number of pledges totalled 177,063 earlier this month, compared with 74,841 a year ago.
Officials attributed the 2.4-fold jump to Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, who pledged to donate his organs before his death on Feb. 16.
Hundreds of thousands of people paid respects to Kim, one of the few people regarded as a true elder statesman here. Apparently, people took his donation pledge as a good example to follow.
The data showed that the number of people committed to organ donation reached 77,166 in 2005 and rose to 90,732 in 2006. But the following two years showed a significant drop.
They said that the number of those who withdrew their pledge reached 553 or about 0.3 percent.
The cardinal's death triggered an outpouring of support for various philanthropic deeds.
"It's a good change," a ministry official said. "We hope that this new acknowledgement of organ donation will continue and take root."
The number of pledges hit a monthly peak in February following Kim's death.
The ministry said that the combined number of the pledges from March to June accounted for about 60 percent of the year's total.