This week, The Royal Gazette <$>is taking the unusual step of undertaking a campaign to encourage more people to become organ donors.

Traditionally, newspapers cover issues and concerns of the public without taking sides, essentially leaving it to people’s judgment to decide what the best course of action may be.

But there are times when an issue or cause is so serious that an institution like this newspaper can play a positive role by “taking sides” and encouraging the public to take a certain course of action.

We think that becoming an organ donor is one such cause.

Some people may have legitimate religious or personal reasons for not becoming donors and those views should be respected.

But many more people are not donors — or refuse to let their loved ones become donors — out of lack of awareness.

This week’s campaign, largely written and researched by reporter Karen Smith, aims to raise people’s awareness and to explain why Bermuda in particular should take a lead in organ donation.

The theme of this campaign is to “give the gift that keeps on living” and there is surely no more precious gift than that.

In the United States alone, six people die every day because of the lack of organ donations.

In the next week, you will read about the people who have received the gift of life because another person has given up part of themselves in order to help others.

The stories are intensely personal and heartfelt, but it is also clear that the recipients will never forget the sacrifice that another person made to let them live.

While the moral reasons for organ donation are compelling, Bermuda residents have a very practical reason for joining this campaign.

Bermuda has an unusually high number of residents with conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and related kidney problems. Yet the number of people who are organ donors is believed to be unusually low.

Sixty-six people are receiving dialysis treatment today in Bermuda. Of that number, 16 people are on kidney transplant lists and are waiting for a donor.

While dialysis itself is something of a medical miracle, enabling patients to have a semblance of normality in their lives, it is also clear that those people who have received kidney transplants are able to enjoy a much better quality of life without dietary restrictions or the requirements of spending nine hours a week hooked up to a machine.

For that reason alone, Bermuda residents should become donors.

Few people like to think about death, but we all recognise that it is inevitable and that we never know when or how it will come.

Last year, the families of two people who had been mortally injured made the hard choice of letting their loved ones’ organs be used for transplants.

In doing so, they saved the lives of dozens of people from all walks of life who were given the chance to live.

As Marianne Herbert, Bermuda’s transplant coordinator said of kidney recipients in yesterday’s newspaper: “The prospect of a better life is exciting, but at the same time, there may be a feeling of sadness that a family somewhere has lost a loved one. At this time, we have to stay focused on the positive aspects of the situation and can only hope that the decision to donate organs and help so many people can give the family of the deceased person some comfort at such a difficult time.

“As one of our kidney transplant recipients so aptly put it: ‘Not a day goes by when I am not grateful to my donor.’”

Surely, there is no better gift than the gift of life.