Fort Walton Beach Medical Center’s Flag Raising Ceremony Kicks off Donate Life Month to Celebrate Organ Donation WHAT:Fort Walton Beach Medical Center will join Donate Life America to participate in the Flags Across America initiative. During this celebration, the Donate Life flag will be raised to honor the hundreds of thousands of donors and recipients whose lives have been touched by organ donation. The flag remains flying the entire month of April and then is raised each time a patient donates an organ or tissue to a recipient in need. Fort Walton Beach Medical Center will be presented with the Donation Champion Award from Life Quest. This award is given to Life Quest hospitals that support organ, tissue and eye donation and blazes a trail of innovation in creating a culture that honor the donor, their families, the staff of hospital and the community they serve. This will be the first presentation of such an award among the 14 HCA Healthcare hospitals served by Life Quest. WHO: Ceremony emcee is Denise Kendust, Director of PR and Communications at Fort Walton Beach Medical Center. Speakers will include an organ transplant recipient (or donor family), Dr. Robert Kiskaddon, Chief Medical Officer at Fort Walton Beach Medical Center, and Jane Wilhoit, CPTC Life Quest Organ Recovery Services. Choctawhatchee Air Force Junior ROTC will raise the Donate Life flag. WHEN: 9:30 a.m., Monday, April 8, 2018 WHERE:Fort Walton Beach Medical Center, 1000 Mar Walt Drive, front of hospital by flag pole. A reception will follow. WHY:National Donate Life Month was declared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and instituted by Donate Life America in 2003 as a time for the nation’s organ and tissue donation and transplantation community to focus its attention on the critical need for life-saving donors. National Donate Life Month is celebrated throughout the month of April. There are nearly 5,500 patients on the waiting list at transplant centers in Florida and each one is waiting for the Gift of Life. By documenting our decisions to become donors on Florida’s registry, we are making a commitment to help save lives. One person can save up to eight lives through the donation of lifesaving organs – heart, kidney, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine – and help 50 people or more who need corneas to see, skin to heal from burns, and bones and connective tissue for common knee, back and dental surgeries. In addition, approximately 6,000 lives per year are saved by living kidney and liver donors. “Organ, blood and tissue donation is a critical need in America and we are fortunate to be able to assist those awaiting for the Gift of Life”, stated Mitch Mongell, CEO Fort Walton Beach Medical Center.
