(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Today organ transplant patients are living better with fewer health problems than ever before.

Consider Gary Long, a cystic fibrosis patient, who received a double-lung transplant at UC Davis Medical Center in 1995 and a living-donor kidney transplant from his father in 2000. At age 41, he is devoting his life to charity work and flying to India on June 13 to help open an orphanage.

“In the last several years, we’ve seen an overall improvement in lung transplants and an upswing in longevity in kidney transplants, especially in living-donor kidney transplants,� said Roblee Allen, a pulmonary and critical care specialist with the UC Davis Transplant Program. “While double transplants are fairly rare, Band-Aid style surgery has improved outcome and lowered the risk, giving patients a higher quality of life.�

For the past year, Long, a former window glazer, has focused on charity work “trying to make a little bit of a difference,� he says. Next week he will open an orphanage for girls through a non-profit organization called Children of the Hour in the city of Kodaikanal within the state of Tamilnadu. On this first trip, he’ll transport school supplies and clothes for the girls who range from age 4 through 16.

“In India, many girls who only have one parent have no income to support them,� Long said. “This orphanage will help the poorest of the poor with quality education and nourishing meals in a loving environment.� Once he opens the first orphanage, he will work on two more.

This isn’t Long’s first missionary venture. Previously he directed the installation of windows in a church in a Nicaraguan community in Los Angeles -- donating his skills through a missionary effort of the Horizon Baptist Church in Galt.

UC Davis Transplant Center currently performs solid organ transplants of the kidney,
kidney-pancreas, isolated pancreas and liver.