Peggy and Steve Elefant

 

Hadassah VP needs kidney

By DEBORAH MOON

article created on: 2008-01-01T00:00:00

Long an active member and officer in Hadassah, a women’s Zionist organization that actively supports organ donation, Peggy Elefant, 58, of Corvallis, now needs an organ donation herself.

Elefant, currently the organization vice president for the Pacific Northwest Region, is seeking a kidney donor.

Since only one of a person’s two kidneys is medically necessary, many patients receiving a kidney receive it from a living donor, often one from the same ethnic background. Elefant said her doctors have told her a living donor would be her best option for surviving the interstitial nephritis that is destroying her own kidneys.

“To donate a kidney is a special mitzvah, above and beyond the call of duty,” said Elefant. “It is the gift of life. I am so appreciative of the efforts and beneficence of the Jewish community in helping me through this very difficult time.”

Following a lecture on organ donation in Portland last month (see story at left), medical ethics expert Rabbi Dr. Avraham Steinberg commented on kidney donation: “Since living donation of kidney entails some risks it is considered by most rabbinic decision-makers  as a noble deed (maase chesed) but not as a positive requirement. On the other hand, since the risk involved is very small most rabbinic decision-makers do not regard it as a forbidden act but rather as a noble act.”

Sarah Tuttle, former president of Beit Am, where Elefant is a member, is spearheading the drive to get the word out to the Jewish community.

“This is a very stressful issue for her (Elefant),” said Tuttle. “She’s a giver, not a taker, and it’s hard for her to ask.”

“Her husband was diagnosed with cancer in the past year and I think that added stress put her into a much faster rate of decline,” said Tuttle.

With her husband undergoing cancer treatment at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, Elefant has elected to have potential donors go through that hospital.

Tuttle said the entire donor testing procedure is totally confidential and Elefant will never know if a person was tested and whether or not they matched unless that person chooses to tell her.

“Our rabbi has said he is available to counsel people considering this decision and my guess is Portland rabbis would put themselves out there similarly,” said Tuttle.

Anyone wishing to discuss becoming a living donor may call Beit Am Rabbi Bejamin Barnett at 541-207-3118.

Tuttle said that in February, the Corvallis Hadassah Chapter is sponsoring a Women’s Health Fair “and one of the topics will be organ donation especially highlighting Peg’s situation.”

For information on being tested for donor compatibility, contact the living donor program at UW at 206-598-3627.