Crediting a liver transplant with saving his life, former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker spoke to state legislators on Tuesday in support of a program that would encourage more state employees to register as organ donors.
"All of us are going to die, but when our death comes, we can -- we have the opportunity -- to give life to others," Tucker said.
Under the Arkansas Regional Organ Recovery Agency's Workplace Partnership program, Arkansas would take steps such as holding a donor registration drive or posting a link to an online donor registry on the state government's website, Stacy Robinson, a workplace partnership specialist at the organ recovery agency, told the state House and Senate public health committees during a joint meeting.
In return, she said, the state would get a plaque and recognition on the Arkansas Regional Organ Recovery Agency's website.
The 29 participating employers listed on the website include Little Rock-based Acxiom, the weekly Arkansas Times newspaper, the state attorney general's office and the cities of Little Rock, North Little Rock, Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Searcy and Siloam Springs.
"We would love to see the state of Arkansas on our website as a workplace partner," Robinson said.
The organ recovery agency hadn't approached Gov. Asa Hutchinson's office about the program as of Tuesday, Hutchinson spokesman J.R. Davis said.
He said Hutchinson was traveling Tuesday and unavailable for comment on the idea of joining the program.
Tucker, 72, a member of the organ recovery agency's board, told the legislators that 122,527 people, including at least 2,000 Arkansans, are on a waiting list for an organ transplant.
A new patient is added to a liver transplant waiting list every 10 minutes, he said.
"Every day, including today, people die waiting for a transplant," Tucker said.
Tucker, a Democrat, was elected lieutenant governor in 1990 and became governor in 1992 after Bill Clinton was elected president. Tucker was elected to a four-year term in 1994. In 1996, he resigned after being convicted of conspiracy and mail fraud charges stemming from a federal investigation of Clinton's involvement in a real-estate venture in the mid-1980s.
By the time he was sentenced to home detention and probation that August, he was on a waiting list for a liver transplant.
He had been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease, at age 18, and primary sclerosing cholangitis, which attacks the bile ducts, about 20 years later.
Because of the diseases, Tucker's colon was removed in 1989. When he was placed on the liver transplant list, he said his "muscle mass had been eaten up," and his "skin was as yellow as a piece of squash."
"The question was whether a liver could in fact be found for me before I died from the disease," Tucker said.
The transplant was performed on Christmas Day of 1996. Tucker said a doctor told him after the procedure that the donor was an 18-year-old who had died in a snowmobile accident.
"It was the donor list and this young man's willingness to do that at 18 years of age that made it possible for me to be alive these past 19 years and be here today," Tucker said.
The most common way for Arkansans to register as an organ donor is by signing up while obtaining or renewing a driver's license at a Department of Finance and Administration office, said Audrey Coleman, the organ agency's director of public education.
People can also sign up online at donatelifearkansas.org, she said.
Sen. Linda Chesterfield, D-Little Rock, said two of her relatives have received donated organs. She encouraged her legislative colleagues to register as donors.
"Lives are indeed saved because of the unselfish act of others," Chesterfield said.
Metro on 09/09/2015