LifePoint Refocuses On Organ & Tissue Recovery Mission Miracles in Sight Acquires Eye Bank Services in South Carolina
May 10, 2015
CHARLESTON, SC – LifePoint, the federally certified organ procurement organization (OPO) for South Carolina (excluding Aiken and Edgefield counties), announced today that it is transferring its ocular department to Miracles in Sight (MIS) headquartered in Winston Salem, North Carolina. The leaders at LifePoint recognize eye bank specialization and consolidation of services are essential to meeting the future needs for corneal transplants and ocular surgeons in South Carolina. LifePoint will continue as the OPO and tissue recovery organization for South Carolina and remains dedicated to honoring people’s end-of-life wishes to be organ and tissue donors.
“I believe a transition of our eye banking operations to MIS will protect the future of eye banking in South Carolina, not only to those citizens who are in need of ocular tissue transplants, but also to those individuals who desire to donate corneas at the time of death,” states Nancy A. Kay, CEO and President of LifePoint. “MIS is one of the oldest and largest eye banks in the United States and is accredited by the Eye Bank Association of America and registered with the Food and Drug Administration. We have always had a great relationship with them. I am certain that MIS will meet the needs of South Carolina. We look forward to this collaboration to fulfill the wishes of our state’s organ, eye and tissue donors.”
Since its inception in 1984, LifePoint has been involved in the saving of over 5,100 lives through organ recovery and enhancing thousands of lives through tissue recovery. In South Carolina, 111 people became organ donors at their deaths during 2014 and helped save nearly 400 lives in South Carolina and across the nation. Nationally, over 29,000 people began new lives last year thanks to organ transplants. There were also 277 tissue donors and 473 ocular (eye) donations in South Carolina last year.
For more information about LifePoint, and/ or to set up an interview with CEO/President Nancy A. Kay, contact Mark Johnson, Media Relations Coordinator for LifePoint, at 864-363-6305.
About LifePoint
LifePoint is the nonprofit, designated Organ Procurement Organization (OPO) in South Carolina and provides organ and tissue donor services to 62 hospitals throughout the state. LifePoint also helps support and educate families at an emotionally devastating time, so they can make well-informed decisions about organ and tissue donation. LifePoint works with Donate Life South Carolina to increase awareness about donation and the South Carolina Organ and Tissue Donor Registry. (LifePoint-SC.org)
