April marks National Donate Life Month, and right now in New York state there are more than 8,000 people awaiting a life-saving organ donation. Of those 8,000 patients, about 400 lost their lives last year.

“Any time we’re talking about Donate Life, it’s a celebration," Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes told a group of advocates, donors, survivors and a bipartisan group of lawmakers at the Legislative Office Building in Albany Tuesday.

What You Need To Know

  • More than 8,000 New Yorkers are awaiting a life-saving organ donation, about 400 of these patients die each year on a waitlist

  • One organ donor can save up to eight lives while having an impact on more than 75 others through tissue donation

  • State lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow patients to register at multiple transplant centers simultaneously

The group was celebrating lives saved through the gift of organ, eye and tissue donation.

“I didn’t realize how bad the numbers were here in New York until I stepped onto the Assembly floor in 2011,” said Assemblyman Phil Palmesano, R-Corning.

Organ donation is a familiar issue for the longtime policymaker. His older sister, Teresa, was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes as a teenager, which led to organ damage.

“Her first transplant came from the kindness of a stranger who made the selfless act to sign up to be an organ donor,” he said. “Teresa had that transplant in 2000 and then six years later I had the privilege to donate a kidney to my sister.”

While the donations provided her with a better quality of life, the overall damage was too great to overcome. Teresa died in 2013 at the age of 50.

“But I tell people she was the lucky one,” Palmesano said. “She had two transplants; some people never receive one.”

It’s why Palmesano is helping champion the Helping Equal Access to Registrations for Transplants Act — better known as the HEART Act.

“We’re going to remove barriers so New Yorkers can have access and opportunity to life-saving transplants,” said Donate Life New York State Executive Director Aisha Tator.

Right now, patients are only listed at one transplant center per geographic area but can be waitlisted on others. The HEART Act will prohibit those limitations, expanding access.

“People need to have access to services on an equal basis,” Peoples-Stokes said. “It doesn’t matter where you live, how you live, what community you’re from, what your ethnicity is, what your age is, what your job is.”

The hope is to bring the Empire State’s organ donation rate of 51% closer in line with the national organ donation rate of 66%. It's a mission Teresa would no doubt be behind.

"I’m pretty sure she’d be proud,” Palmesano said. “She’d be saying, 'That’s my little brother.'”

The legislation was formally introduced to the Assembly earlier this month and was referred to a committee on health. The bipartisan group of bill sponsors are optimistic it could cross the finish line soon.

There are other efforts to improve access to organ donation like ensuring all New Yorkers can enroll in the Donate Life registry when filing their income taxes and expanding the list of loved ones who can authorize organ donation.