Today, we announce a significant win with the removal of a barrier to living organ donation! The National Kidney Foundation worked closely with Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) to develop language to protect living donors’ jobs that will be included in the Committee Report to the Fiscal Year 2019 Appropriations Bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies.

The provision in the Committee Report requests the Department of Labor to give notice on its website or in other public communications that living donors who are qualified for the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) are eligible for family medical leave when they donate an organ.  This means that if the Department of Labor makes the requested notification, living donors who take time off for surgery and recovery will have their jobs guaranteed when they return to work, which is a big concern for living donors.

We would like to thank Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler for making this achievement possible. However, while this is a huge victory for patients and organ donors, we need to keep pressing Congress to pass the Living Donor Protection Act (H.R. 1270) which also provides protection from discrimination in the pricing or availability of life, disability or long-term care insurance.   Please write them today, if you have not already done so, to ask them to become a co-sponsor of H.R. 1270.