With Christmas less than three weeks away, Bermudians were urged to give the "gift of life'' this week by becoming full-fledged organ and tissue donors.

Unlike many larger countries, Bermuda has no real history of widespread organ donation, but that is expected to change as King Edward VII Memorial Hospital mounts an aggressive education campaign in anticipation of Organ Donation Awareness Week in April.

"This is our first effort really to make the public aware of organ donation,'' Ms Glenda Daniels, the unit co-ordinator of King Edward's intensive care unit, told a public meeting at Hamilton's Cathedral Hall. "I think the more that we talk about (organ donation), the more people will get interested in it.'' Currently, King Edward is aligned for transplant purposes with the Boston-based New England Organ Bank, which includes the Island in its so-called Zone One, a grouping of jurisdictions that places locals who need a transplant on an equal footing with others in the US northeast.

But while the 13 Bermudians who are presently awaiting transplants have been fully piped into the system, the hospital is right now working to ensure that more local people make arrangements to donate their organs at death.

"You don't have to be an 18-year-old (to be a donor),'' Dr. Andrew Spence of the hospital's ICU told the audience, which included Health and Social Services Minister Harry Soares.

"There are many parts of your body that will be gratefully accepted by someone who is sick. And your body can help so many different people -- two kidneys mean two people are taking off dialysis, a liver can be halved and given to two people.'' As a living example of the degree to which a recipient's quality of life can be changed by a donation, Ms Brenda Butler-Hamlet, a New England Organ Bank worker who received a donated heart, joined bank co-ordinator Ms Jenny Teed in stressing the importance of a potential donor discussing the prospect of donating with family members, who in most cases must sign a release.

During the course of the two-hour meeting, the panelists also noted: All organ recoveries occur only after all brain function stops completely.

Recoveries in Bermuda take place on a "very tight'' time frame, but are flown out by chartered jet, undergo the same battery of screening tests as other donations and are recovered as usual by the same medical team that conducts the organ transplant.

Most major religions, with the exception of Islam, have supported organ donations on the ground that they are life-saving.

Currently, Bermudians cannot make note of their willingness to donate their organs on ID like driver's licenses -- Ms Daniels said that talks with the Transport Control Department on this issue have taken longer than expected -- but the hospital is providing New England Organ Bank stickers that can be affixed to identification.