CAPE TOWN - Nearly 5,000 patients in South Africa are awaiting life-saving solid organ or corneal transplants.
But for some, those organs may never come.
South Africa has one of the lowest organ donation rates in the world at just 0.2 percent.
One body can save up to seven lives and change even more futures.
Aloshay Arendse (14) has a new lease on life following her kidney and liver transplant eight months ago.
Madeline van Schalkwyk has come face-to-face with Professor Elmin Steyn who assisted during her surgery 31 years ago.
Steyn said surgeons don’t get this kind of follow-up with a patient after so many years.
The South African Transplant Society says just under 3,000 patients are waiting for a solid organ transplants and around 2,000 require corneal transplantation.
Recipients are heaping praise on the families who consent to organ donation that can save lives at a time of tremendous grief.
* eNCA's Kevin Brandt reports.