Recognition for a pair of nurses at Windsor Regional Hospital.
Intensive care unit nurses Andrea Brearly and Terra Popovski are being acknowledged by the Trillium Gift of Life Network for being exceptional advocates for organ and tissue donation.
They've been awarded the 2023 Provincial Donation Champion Award for excellence in fulfilling Ontario Health's mandate to save and enhance more lives through the gift of organ and issue donation.
Officials say the pair were nominated for the award because they always have donation at the forefront of their practise, and they ensure that referrals come in a timely fashion to support more people.
In 2023, the province contributed to 1,152 essential organ transplants and Ontario hospitals supported 365 organ donors and 1,853 tissue donors.
According to Ontario Health, these milestones couldn't be met without the dedication of individuals like Brearly and Popovski.
Popovski, who works out of the Met campus, says it means a lot to be recognized by their peers.
"It is a wonderful honour and a privilege to be nominated for this award and to receive this award. Organ donation is something that I believe in both professionally and personally, so it does mean a lot to be nominated for this award," she said.
Brearly, who works out of the Ouellette campus, says the issue really became important to her back in 2012 when her husband was listed as a donor but he unfortunately passed before he could receive a heart transplant.
She says it was a welcome surprise to be nominated.
"I felt honoured that I was able to support my co-workers in the unit. We have a lot of young nurses, so to be someone who is 25 years in and then be able to watch them grow with the donor families. And get their comfort level as they speak to the families as well, and take care of the whole family as well not just the patient," Brearly said.
Popovski has been a registered nurse for over 20 years, and she explained that to donate certain criteria need to be met and a certain sequence of events needs to occur.
"Part of our job as registered nurses is identifying somebody who has the potential to donate, there's certain triggers and criteria that are met. And ultimately we contact Trillium to let them know that we have this patient in the ICU, and based on their circumstances there may be some potential here."
From there, she says the process involves Trillium gathering information and looking into whether the patient is someone who can donate either organs or tissue.
Support for organ donation is strong provincially, yet only 35 per cent of people are registered organ donors.
On average, there are 1,400 people in Ontario waiting for a live saving organ transplant.