MURRAY, Utah — The Intermountain Health Transplant Program, based at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, transplanted 414 organs in 2023.
It marked another record-breaking year for the adult organ transplant programs by the health care provider.
Intermountain says a total of 182 liver, 198 kidney, 30 heart, and 4 kidney/pancreas adult transplants were performed last year. That’s a 38-percent increase from 2022, when the team performed 300 transplants.
One of those recipients last year was Hal McNeil.
"I'm going to be alive for many more years," he said.
It's a new lease on life for McNeil.
On July 7 of last year, the husband, father of three children and grandfather to nine received a new liver after battling non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH).
"The situation, NASH, is non-alcoholic cirrhosis," said McNeil. "It's the same thing as alcoholic cirrhosis. The worst part about it is you don't have any discomfort until it's very progressed."
It's an ailment, McNeil says, he could have had for years.
"As it was with me many, many years and had I not had my gallbladder removed and that surgeon not looked, I might not still have known that I had it," said McNeil.
This marked the fifth consecutive year the program has performed a record-breaking number of adult transplants.
"I think that the number of living organ donors is on the rise as well, partly helping to meet that need," said Dr. Cara Heuser, a maternal fetal medicine physician at Intermountain Health.
Dr. Heuser is also a living donor.
She volunteered to be a living liver donor in 2020 and a living kidney donor last year.
"I was fortunate enough to be in a situation of, you know, a social, financial, physical situation that I had the means to do it," said Dr. Heuser.
Dr. Heuser says she thinks being a living donor has also helped her connect even more with the people she cares for.
"I've had patients tell me that knowing that about me makes them feel more comfortable with me, that they felt like they could trust me," she said.
While McNeil says he has had no pain since being discharged, he has seen the ailment he suffered from impact others close to him.
"My wife also has NASH, the same physical ailment. She doesn't have any tumors on her liver," he said.
McNeil had this to say to people who have or haven't thought about organ donation: "Don't wait for it to be a loved one. It's not difficult to be a living donor. I would consider it if they would consider me."
According to Intermountain Health, there are currently 103,00 people across the country on the transplant list waiting for a kidney, liver, pancreas, heart or lungs.
In Utah, 885 people are on that waiting list.
For more information about organ donation or to register to become an organ donor, you can visit intermountainhealthcare.org/donatelife.
