Mapleton resident Joe Berry has decades of experience in hospital administration and 28 months' experience as an organ recipient.

Last week he testified in Springfield in favor of state Sen. Dale Risinger's bill to reduce shortages of donated organs by establishing a presumed consent policy.

Berry said presumed consent is proven: It saves lives, money and improves quality of life.

The current system requires people to opt in. Presumed consent provides the same individual right to decide but reverses the process by requiring people to opt out. Rather than signing up to be an organ donor, people sign up who don't want to be organ donors.

The policy is followed in Spain, Belgium, Denmark, France and several other countries.

Berry said we are rapidly falling behind in this country with a widening gap between the number of donated organs and the number of people waiting for transplants.

Speaking after the public hearing, Berry said medical advances will create increasing demand for donated organs. He cited advances in pediatric medicine. Pediatric patients who are dying because of liver failure can receive a transplanted liver to buy time to allow the child's own liver to regenerate. When that happens, the donated liver can be removed, and the child's own liver takes over.

"That only works at this time in pediatric patients," Berry said.

Also speaking at the hearing, in opposition to presumed consent, was Nathan Maddox, senior legal adviser for the Illinois Secretary of State's Office, which currently administrates the organ donor registry.

Maddox said he acknowledges a "certain facial appeal" with presumed consent but thinks it will place a burden on family members of a deceased person. No hospital will remove organs in opposition to family members, Maddox said.

With the first-person registry now used in Illinois, family members who object can be shown the deceased overtly took action to become an organ donor.