As grieving parents prepared for their daughter to save lives as an organ donor, Gift of Life Michigan’s Josie Springer headed to a craft store for a plaster handprint kit to make a treasured keepsake for them.
Josie Springer is a donation coordinator who has traveled to hospitals across Michigan to care for donors and their heartbroken families for 29 years.The donation coordinator has traveled to hospitals across Michigan to care for donors and their heartbroken families for 29 years.
“That little handprint meant so much to that family,” Josie recalled. “It’s just kindness. Just a little thing I did. I’ll do anything to help a family.”
She uses her years of skilled work as an operating room nurse to care for donors in the hours and minutes before they give their final gifts. Josie works with hospital physicians and nurses to monitor and treat patients in their final days and hours, helps families navigate the process, and communicates with transplant surgeons.
It’s technical, detailed work that requires special skill and demeanor.
It’s also compassionate work, involving gentle conversations, hugs and making cherished handprints. Josie asks families to tell her about their loved ones.
“It’s the worst time of a family’s life,” Josie said. “They get such consolation knowing part of their loved one will live on. Meanwhile, I treat them with compassion and caring. That’s what they need, and that’s what they deserve.”
Josie’s job as a donation coordinator is a vital part of the Gift of Life mission, said Rita Erickson, manager of organ services at Gift of Life. Josie is one of 60 coordinators who travel to 130 hospitals in the state at all times, day and night.
“She has to toggle back and forth between moving forward with the organs for donation and helping the family cope with the loss of a loved one,” Rita said. “It’s a hard job. She can be onsite 16 to 18 hours.
“But Josie loves this job. She puts passion for the mission before anything else. She’s here to save a life.”
Patients on the waiting list are dying every day, desperate for an organ transplant, Josie said. About 2,500 people are waiting in Michigan and more than 100,000 nationwide.
“We are the voice for those people we’re trying to save,” she said.
“It’s a really tough conversation to have with some families,” Josie said. “There are days, even after all these years, that I cry. That’s no different than the day I started.
“But donors and their families are heroes. There’s no greater gift.”
