(a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(1) More than 20,000 Californians are currently waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant, and over 17,000 of those individuals are waiting for a kidney transplant. Based on the current trend in organ donations, one in three of those waiting for a transplant will die. In 2009, 5,874 Americans died while waiting for a transplant.
(2) On a national level, the number of organ donors increased by 3 percent from the years 2008 to 2009, while the number of organ donors in California decreased by 2 percent during this same time period. In 2009, there were only 798 cadaveric donors and 734 living donors in California.
(3) A decrease in organ donors results in longer stays on the national organ transplant waiting list and, consequently, more deaths among those patients who are waiting.
(4) The national organ transplant waiting list, which is maintained by the United Network for Organ Sharing, is growing at the rate of approximately 40,000 persons per year. A name is added to this national database every 13 minutes.
(5) Since 2005, more than six million Californians have registered to donate their organs and tissue upon death.
(6) However, no registry exists in California for those individuals who wish to be an altruistic living organ donor.
(b) The use of anatomical gifts, and the donation of organs for the purpose of transplantation, are of great value to the citizens of California and may save or prolong the life, or improve the health of, extremely ill and dying individuals.
(c) It is the intent of the Legislature to increase the number of individuals who identify themselves as potential organ donors. It is further the intent of the Legislature to establish a statewide Altruistic Living Donor Registry to expedite the match between organ donors and recipients and to encourage charitable contributions to support the registry.
(Added by Stats. 2010, Ch. 217, Sec. 1. (SB 1395) Effective January 1, 2011.)