Organ Donors Few, Wait Long for Minorities : Health: Nearly 700 African Americans and Latinos in the county await new kidneys, but there are only about 200 potential donors for them.

For Eva Duvall, overcoming her failing health required pain and sacrifice--seven operations, a rigid diet and no swimming or other activities she enjoyed.

But today, Duvall has a new, fully functional kidney, after waiting since 1991 for a successful transplant. Now she’s ready to get on with life.

“When I was going through all those problems I really felt down,” said Duvall, 44. “Now I can think positive and be positive.”

Carlos Beteta of Watts has had similar luck. After nearly three years of being on dialysis while awaiting a kidney, Beteta, 26, received a successful transplant in August.

But Duvall, who is African American, and Beteta, who is Latino, are the exceptions rather than the rule.

Many minorities wait as long as five years for organ transplants, about twice as long as the average wait for white patients. Although transplantation is an increasingly successful procedure, the number of organ donors is stagnant and, especially for minorities, not nearly enough to meet demand.

Public awareness campaigns such as last month’s National Organ and Tissue Donor Week usually spur only a minor increase in donors.

“For the last six years, the number of donors has remained relatively flat” nationwide, said Elizabeth Flynn, community relations director for the Regional Organ Procurement Agency (ROPA).

Fewer than 5,000 people nationwide have signed up to become donors, Flynn pointed out, but there are more than 34,000 people awaiting transplants. In Los Angeles County, 1,470 patients are awaiting organ donations. Latinos account for 31% of that figure, and 17% are African Americans.

Nearly 700 blacks and Latinos in the county are awaiting new kidneys, the most commonly transplanted organ. But there are only about 200 potential donors in the two communities, 21% of them Latino and 8% African American, according to ROPA.

“Every day, 72 names are added to the list of people needing donors, and every day, seven or eight people die waiting for donors,” she said.

Beteta was fortunate because his more common tissue type gave him a 50-50 chance of having a successful transplant. Many minority patients, especially African Americans, have a smaller chance of getting organs with similar tissue types because of the limited number of donors from those racial or ethnic groups, said Dr. Lilly Barba, medical director of the renal transplant program at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

Duvall was especially lucky to get her kidney as quickly as she did. Because of a high antibody count, it was probable her body would reject a kidney, said Barba, who treated Duvall during her dialysis. A January, 1993, transplant failed five months later, and she was forced to return to dialysis until her latest transplant, done late last year.

“I always hoped I would get a kidney, to get off dialysis. I look at the number of people still waiting, and I know that I was blessed,” Duvall said.

Said Flynn of ROPA: “The tragedy is, we can save these lives, but we can’t without the donors.”