Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker Burke, I congratulate you on your elevation to the position of Deputy Speaker. I thank the member for Fremantle for putting this morning’s motion on the Notice Paper. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to speak to it. I want to speak about some personal cases where we have seen an impact from organ donation. But first of all I refer to a very timely letter to the editor that appeared in the Canberra Times this morning. It was from David Mitchell, of Waramanga, whom I do not think I have met. He said:

My son, Jon, died suddenly at age 17.

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As a family group we had previously discussed what we would do if any of us died suddenly and we all agreed that we would like our organs donated to save other people’s lives.

So in the midst of shock and despair we were able to inform the hospital that Jon’s perfectly good organs were available for transplant.

What followed was the arrival of the transplant co-ordinators who quietly discussed what was going to happen with us and we agreed to go ahead.

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At all times the transplant co-ordinator kept contact with us and showed care and concern for our feelings.

We found out later that Jon’s organs had saved five other people.

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We miss him every day and suffer the loss and feel the despair of losing him deeply still.

We are consoled that part of him lives on in the people he saved.

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I urge everyone to sign up to donate their perfectly good organs when they leave this world.

I thank Mr Mitchell for having the energy and foresight to send such an insightful letter to the Canberra Times.

I also want to speak about a very dear friend of mine, Justice Terry Connolly, who sadly died very suddenly last year of a heart attack. He was only 49 years of age and in the prime of his life. He was actually fit and healthy and he was making, as he had always made, a significant contribution to our community. He was looking forward to growing old with his wife, Helen, and seeing his two daughters grow. When Terry died, Helen and his two daughters, Lara and Maddy, consented to having Terry’s corneas donated. This followed a previous family discussion about organ donation and the decision to register as organ donors. Helen says she and Terry made the decision to donate their organs because they felt it was something they should do as responsible partners and parents. Helen says that, through the experience of Terry donating his corneas, some tangible good has come from the time of deep sadness for the family. The fact that through Terry’s death someone was alleviated from their pain and suffering brought them some semblance of comfort and some sense of meaning from his death.

At the other end of this debate we have people who are waiting. I want to talk about 10-month-old Cordelia Vance, who lives in Canberra. Cordelia’s rare liver condition has prevented her from reaching any milestones that other babies of her age would automatically reach. There have been stories in the press in the last few days about Cordelia’s family and circumstances. She is a dear little possum with an older sister named Octavia. The family desperately need to see a liver come their way.

I also want to talk about Ms Cahill-Lambert, a woman of older years with a rare lung disease who is hooked to an oxygen machine for 24 hours a day. I have met her many times. She is a local person in Canberra and she desperately wants to have a transplant arranged so that her life can continue.

When we look at the two particular angles of this human story—the first where people are waiting and the second where we actually see the successful outcome of that wait—we see every reason why none of us have a real excuse, other than for the accepted reasons, not to register for organ donation.

For my part, like other members in this place I send out a community newsletter, which goes to 72,000 households in my electorate. The next edition is going out in two weeks, and I have decided that in that newsletter there will be a tear-out page with the donor registration form and with, on the other side, my reasons for wanting people to fill it out. I am very hopeful that they will. The statistics given by the previous speakers and the stories I have repeated here from the human side this morning really make it very difficult to understand why those with other than religious objections cannot fill those forms out. (Time expired)

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