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SACRAMENTO — While the national average for organ donations rose in the first half of last year by about 4 percent, organ donations in California dropped by 13 percent, according to national health officials. 

California’s organ donation system is “woefully inadequate” and has led to a decline in lifesaving donations, Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Daly City, said Tuesday. 

She has introduced a bill to create a statewide databank of people willing to be donors.  

Similar registries in other states have led to higher numbers of donors, she said. 

Medical officials and those who match donors with recipients say having the registry would help, but more public education is needed – especially among minorities, who make up 70 percent of the list of those waiting for an organ. 

Organ donations among minorities are lower than the rest of the population, said Dr. Lorenzo Rossaro, chief of hepatology at UC Davis Medical Center.  

And because recipients often need an organ from someone with the same ethnicity, minorities are less likely to find a matching donor. 

Up to seven organs – heart, two lungs, two kidneys, pancreas and liver – can be recovered from a dead person, so each donation potentially could save seven lives. 

One donor saved the lives of Paul White of Fresno and his daughter. White found out his kidneys were failing in 1982 and his 14-year-old daughter was diagnosed with kidney disease a few years later. 

“I was at work when I got the call that there was a kidney for me and a kidney for my daughter.  

“We both received kidneys from the same donor,” he said. 

White’s two sons also have been diagnosed with kidney disease and his daughter’s kidney transplant was rejected in 1990. She is waiting for an organ donation. 

Because there are strict medical guidelines on donations, only about 1,200 people each year in California die in a manner that they can be considered for organ donations. 

“But over 50 percent of families say no when asked to donate their loved ones’ organs,” Speier said at a Capitol news conference announcing her bill. 

Under Speier’s bill, the state Department of Motor Vehicles would offer hand out a registration card that would be mailed to the registry.  

The registry also would have a simple way for people to remove their name from the list, she said. 

Even if people have signed up for the registry, or put the pink sticker on their drivers’ license, transplant officials still ask their families’ permission to recover organs, said Phyllis Weber, with the California Transplant Donor Network in Oakland. 

“Most procurement groups say if families say no, they’re not going to proceed. But in reality, it’s not a problem” if the deceased has indicated they want to donate their organs, said Weber. 

Families often turn down donation because they are unsure if that’s what the deceased wanted, she said. 

“This would be a gift to families. I can’t tell you how many families say they just don’t know what to do,” Weber said. 

The registry would be sufficient proof of a donor’s intentions if no family member could be found in 12 hours, she said. 

Speier estimates that the registry would cost $500,000 to start and $250,000 a year to run. 

On the Net: 

Speier’s bill, SB108, can be read at www.sen.ca.gov