P.E.I. man dies waiting on transplant list

MONTROSE, P.E.I. — A P.E.I. man, who, along with his wife, had encouraged Islanders to sign up to be organ and tissue donors, has died in Ontario while awaiting a liver and double lung transplant.
Kevin Clements of Montrose died Sunday at the MacKenzie Health Centre in Richmond Hill, Ont. He was 53.
He and his wife, Josephine, left for Ontario on April 12 to prepare for a liver transplant from a live donor. Earlier this month, however, it was determined he would also require a double-lung transplant and he was subsequently placed on life support.
Josephine said her husband had been taken off the transplant list while doctors worked to get him strong enough to receive the life-saving procedures.
His brother, Carl, who lives in New Hamburg, Ont., had been scheduled to donate part of his liver, but once it was determined that Kevin would also need a double-lung transplant, a live donor was no longer an option.
“They couldn’t take his organs, but Kevin donated his eyes and I think they are taking some of his tissue, as well, for somebody who is a burn victim,” said Josephine, who is still in Ontario. 
She’s hoping his lungs can be donated to science “so that more research can be done into Kevin’s syndrome; so that they can help somebody else and prevent them from having to go through the same battle.”
Her husband, she said, had been battling non-alcoholic fatty-liver disease for over five years, and it caused shunting which prevented his lungs from getting a sufficient amount of oxygen to his organs and it damaged his lungs. She believes the outcome would have been much different had Kevin been referred sooner to the live liver transplant team in Toronto before his lungs were compromised.
Kevin Clements was on the transplant list in Halifax for over a year waiting for a liver from a person who had died. It was during that wait that the couple raised awareness about the need for Islanders to declare their willingness to be organ and tissue donors in the event of an untimely death. 
Josephine said she arranged for a computer to be set up during a memorial service for her husbandTuesday night in New Hamburg, Ont., where several of his family members reside. Anyone who wished to sign up to be an organ and tissue donor could do so at that time.
She also plans to have a donor sign-up opportunity during visiting hours at Rooney’s Funeral Home in Alberton. The date and time of that service and the subsequent funeral service at St. Mark’s Church in Burton, P.E.I., have not been finalized.
Following cremation, three carloads of family members will return with Kevin's ashes back to P.E.I. for burial. Trips from Ontario to P.E.I. were always among her husband’s favourites, his wife said. 
Besides his wife, Josephine, and daughter Christie-Joe (CJ), Kevin  is survived by his father, Ferdie, and brother Wayne in Roseville, P.E.I.; brother Carl and sister Kathy Zehr in New Hamburg, his mother-in-law, Sandy Snyders in Palmerston, Ont., and brothers-in-law Mike and Gord Snyders.