Waiting List

Are you a registered organ donor? If so, you should get a break. But instead you're getting the shaft. Now registered organ donors around the United States are uniting to get fair treatment. If you've agreed to donate your organs when you die, your generosity can save lives. Last year in the United States, about 22,000 people received organs transplanted from deceased donors. But registered organ donors who need transplants are treated no better than people who have declined to donate their organs when they die. As a result, every year, thousands of registered organ donors die waiting for transplants when the organs that could have saved their lives are given to nondonors.

Even if you have never collected annual Christmas tree ornaments, this may be the year you buy one. As the new millennium approaches, the desire to buy limited editions of many artifacts, including dated Christmas ornaments, is gaining momentum. People, realizing the significance of this once-in-a-lifetime event, are seeking souvenirs to mark it.Manufacturers know a good opportunity when they see one. They're rushing in with a fanciful array of ornaments. They're employing popular symbols, from the not-so-subtle ornaments with "2000" in numerals, to the expected icons of a new year, like mini-champagne glasses and champagne bottles ensconcedce buckets.

Walter Paytons death shows the need for more organ donorsWalter Payton, one of the greatest football players of all time, died last week. He had been on the waiting list for a liver transplant, although when he died he may have been too sick to receive a transplant.The day Mr. Payton died, two or three other people probably died while on the waiting list for a liver. Another three or four died waiting for a heart or lung and five or six died waiting for a kidney.And the next day, 10 or 12 more people died waiting.

The location of a metal-detector club's meetings was incorrectly stated in a letter to the editor yesterday. The club meets at 7: 30 p.m. the last Tuesday of the month at the Victory Villa Community Center, Compass Road and Martin Boulevard.The Sun regrets the error.Many hobbyists follow rulesOn Jan. 15, you published a photograph of someone using a metal detector in Baltimore's Federal Hill Park. Unfortunately, this park is not open to metal detecting.A number of years ago, a group of metal-detecting enthusiasts worked with the Baltimore parks department to create a permit system to enable them to hunt city parks.

A national organ-sharing network withdrew sanctions yesterday that would have forced Maryland's primary transplant center to severely curb the use of kidneys for transplants in the state.The move was a pardon of sorts for the Maryland Transplant Resource Center and dozens of local patients awaiting kidney transplants who would have dropped to the bottom of a national waiting list for organs.The United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit group that holds a federal contract to enforce transplant policy nationwide, threatened in June to restrict Maryland's access to organs to reconcile the state's 67-kidney "debt."

Glendening plan for disabled is long overdueGov. Parris N. Glendening's proposal to provide $68.4 million in state funds to reduce the waiting list for disability services represents a most welcome and compassionate response to a problem that has been allowed to worsen for far too long.A new report by the Arc, a national organization on mental retardation, indicates that more than 5,300 Marylanders with mental retardation are currently on waiting lists for needed residential, day and vocational services, with the standard wait for services 10 to 12 years.

CLARIFICATIONAn article in Monday's editions on the popularity of parochial ++ schools in Howard County should have reported that tuition at Resurrection-St. Paul School in Ellicott City is $2,790 for children of parishioners.Though they are in a county that boasts some of the most respected public schools in Maryland, Howard County's parochial schools are in the midst of a growth spurt as more parents look for an education that puts religion on equal footing with academics.Take the Resurrection-St.

All you folks out there who loved your VW Beetle like a significant other, who nursed it when the timing was off or indulged it when the heater wouldn't work or fumed when it refused to start in cold weather...You're the folks Volkswagen officials are counting on to snap up the much-ballyhooed New Beetle when it starts rolling onto dealer lots next month.And snap it up you will. By all reports, advance sales have been brisk ever since the car debuted at last month's North American International Auto Show in Detroit; the company expects to sell 50,000 the first year.

QUEENS, N.Y. -- For 11 years, until November 1997, the Rev. Floyd Flake was also Democratic congressman Flake. He had said when he went to Washington that he would serve at most six terms, and midway through his sixth -- he couldn't wait; sound fellow -- he resigned. One of America's ablest black leaders has responsibilities more manifold, pressing and satisfying than politics offers.The school he founded in 1982 -- the pupils, grades kindergarten through 8, immaculate in their uniforms -- sparkles.

The former manager of a West Baltimore housing cooperative pleaded guilty yesterday to accepting $22,500 in bribes from people looking to circumvent the long waiting list for subsidized apartments.In return for a bribe of $1,500, Dorothy Y. Budd would move an applicant's name to the top of the list, saving him or her a two-year wait, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan M. Ringler.Budd's scheme at the Poppleton Cooperative, a 96-unit federally subsidized development at 838 W. Fairmount Ave., unraveled in October 1996 when the FBI sent in an undercover agent posing as a housing applicant.

A state agency is sorting through its waiting list of 19,000 developmentally disabled people to see if they still need services, a step that highlights a decades-old backlog of families seeking scarce state funding. Starting with those in the highest need category, the Developmental Disabilities Administration is working its way through the list, a process that is estimated to take six months. "It will help us with planning for services," Executive Director Michael Chapman said. Those services range from behavioral support services to medical day care, but Chapman said most people are seeking home support services or funding for a day care program.

Angelique C. Graham of Columbia said her passion for nursing comes from personal experience on the other side of the stethoscope. She battled acute myelogenous leukemia as a young adult. She said she remembers in particular one nurse whose comments left her discouraged and another who, when she was feeling defeated, told her to keep fighting and "prepared me for everything that could possibly happen." The supportive nurse "was able to make a difference," she said, and even the one who was not made her realize that "nurses are key to everyone's recovery."

"Housing and health" (Commentary, Oct. 24) was a compelling and thought-provoking column about the positive correlation between housing and health. However, I reject the authors' conclusion that "closing the waiting list for the Housing Choice Voucher Program will make a bad situation worse." There are 16,000 families on the waiting list for this program, many of whom have been there for five or more years, and new applicants would go to the bottom of the list and not be served for many years.

The nation's housing crisis is also a health crisis - especially for children. When families lose stable housing, children lose the bedrock that anchors them to schools, neighborhoods, medical services, child care and social services, often with serious consequences for their health. As of today, the Housing Authority of Baltimore City is closing the waiting list for the Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8) because it has enough applicants for the next 12 months. In other words, families who need stable housing have to wait at least a year before getting onto a waiting list.

About 100 low-income families are set to get Section 8 federal rent vouchers as Howard County prepares to reopen its long-closed waiting list next month. Once the list opens, probably after May 15, new families will be able to apply, though it may take a year or more to serve some of them, said Howard County housing officials. The reopening of the county list, closed since November 2003, also will help families living in the county's homeless shelter by creating more opportunities to obtain apartments through the federal rent subsidy program, said Sam Tucker, Section 8 coordinator.

Disabled go without in the richest state Two noteworthy items of startling contrast came out this summer. First, Maryland is now the wealthiest state in the nation (and Howard County is the wealthiest county in the state). Second, the state of Maryland has nearly 16,400 children and adults with cognitive and developmental disabilities and their families on a "waiting list" for services. What are they waiting for? They are waiting for housing, employment, community living services and in-home family and individual support.

Are you a registered organ donor? If so, you should get a break. But instead you're getting the shaft. Now registered organ donors around the United States are uniting to get fair treatment. If you've agreed to donate your organs when you die, your generosity can save lives. Last year in the United States, about 22,000 people received organs transplanted from deceased donors. But registered organ donors who need transplants are treated no better than people who have declined to donate their organs when they die. As a result, every year, thousands of registered organ donors die waiting for transplants when the organs that could have saved their lives are given to nondonors.

The first Student Day Care Center at Towson University served eight children in a converted storage area. It then moved to a building where generations of teachers have been trained. Now, with that academic building set to be knocked down to make way for a bigger structure, the day care center is moving on to much larger quarters. On Monday, the center opens in its new, $4.5 million home. Harriet Douthirt, the director of the day care center, said the new building will allow the operation to expand and meet a growing demand.

Of course the five-kidney, 10-patient transplant extravaganza at Johns Hopkins Hospital got on the CBS Evening News last month. A dozen surgeons worked all day to fulfill a complex, "my relative will give you a kidney if your relative gives me a kidney" contract that pushed the bounds of clinical logistics. "A huge medical story," said Katie Couric. "A surgical square dance," said CBS correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. A "triumph of the human spirit," transplant director Dr. Robert Montgomery told The Sun. And yet the heroics barely skimmed the ocean of desperate people needing kidneys.

Wrestling -- Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks is accepting registration for the Howard County Wrestling League for boys and girls, ages 5 to 15. A clinic, for ages 5 to 8, with one practice night and minimal competition, costs $50 a child. Recreational, with two or three practices a week, two tournaments and six to eight matches, costs $115. The Vipers Travel Team, which involves three practices a week, two league tournaments, and a dual meet season, costs $150. Events are held at Howard County high schools.