Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Authority Bill 2008. Donating an organ is the greatest and most selfless gift anyone can give to another human being. Health permitting, anyone can be an organ and tissue donor and there is no age limit for donating organs or tissues. For people with life-threatening or serious illnesses, organ or tissue transplantation may be a second chance at life or an improved quality of life.

One organ or tissue donor may save or enhance the lives of up to 50 people. Organs that can be donated for transplantation include heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and pancreas and tissue donations consist of corneas, bones and heart valves. Corneal transplants are used to restore sight to people who are partially or completely blind because of a problem with their own cornea—the clear pillow at the front of the eye. Both the cornea and the white of the eye can also be used in tissue transplants. A single eye tissue donor can help between two and four people.

A bone tissue transplant is used to help repair fractures and strengthen hip and knee joint replacements. It may also be used to replace bone lost as a result of injury or tumour. Transplanted bone allows the surgeons to rebuild defects to aid functional rehabilitation. Bone tissue transplants can also be used to repair curvatures of the spine—scoliosis—in children and teenagers.

Heart valves are mainly used to repair congenital defects in young children and also when someone’s valves stop working effectively due to disease such as rheumatic fever, degeneration, and infection. Donated human heart valves have many advantages over artificial or alternative sources. Human heart valves are more resistant to infection and do not require the use of anticlotting medications.

The current Australian Organ Donor Register is a national register that was launched in November 2001. Administered by Medicare, the Australian Organ Donor Register can be accessed 24 hours a day, seven days a week by authorised medical personnel to verify a person’s intent to be a donor. Donor coordinators play an important role in caring for donors and their families during and after organ and tissue donation.

Entry onto the registry is voluntary and allows people to indicate which organs and tissues they are comfortable to donate or to register a decision not to donate any organs or tissue after death. The method of being registered as an organ donor on a drivers licence changed in 2001 to an Australia-wide donor register—the Australian Organ Donor Register. As a result, drivers licences now no longer include an organ donation question. Instead, the licensing authorities offer the AODR forms when a licence is issued or renewed.

In an effort to make people more aware of organ donation, an organ register section was added to the Medicare rebate claim form in February 2006 and the organ donation campaign extended to Centrelink offices. I have been told that about five million people had registered at that time and the expectation is that it could be further increased.

Five or six years ago Western Australia had the worst organ donor rate in Australia. After an intensive campaign, Western Australia had 30 organ donors in 2005, the highest record of organ donation per capita of any state in Australia. It seems that in 2006, along with most other states in Australia, there was a significant drop in the number of organ donations made. In Western Australia there were only 21 organ donations made in 2006. Last year, 19 donors from Western Australia, out of a total of 198 people nationwide, generously donated their organs. One of these generous donors meant a successful outcome for a very ill teenager in my electorate of Forrest.

Young Aimee Blackiston of Dardanup underwent a 10-hour double lung transplant operation at Royal Perth Hospital in February 2007 and her story has been reported by the media. Lung transplants were performed for the first time in Western Australia just three years ago. Aimee was only just able to finish her year 12 at Bunbury Cathedral Grammar School. A competitive horse rider and keen basketball player, she was also Goldsmith house captain at her school. But her health deteriorated during the year and she was diagnosed with primary pulmonary hypertension. Doctors put Aimee on the waiting list for a heart and lung transplant as the only way to survive her rare disorder. Aimee and her family endured an excruciating two-week wait in intensive care without finding a suitable donor. She proved to be a very strong character, remaining positive, but it was very hard for her family to see her deteriorate so rapidly.

Organ donation and transplant operations are certainly a combined team effort. In Aimee’s case a Defence Force jet was approved for stand-by for the life-saving mercy mission if the organs became available in the eastern states, with all hospitals on alert for this very deserving patient. Commercial flights would not have been able to get donor organs from eastern states to Perth fast enough for the organs to be in a useable condition, as organs survive for only five hours after being removed from donors.

Dr Robert Larbalastier, the head of Royal Perth Hospital’s transplant unit, said Aimee’s prognosis would be excellent once she had a successful transplant operation, but this was her only chance of a cure. Recognition must be made of Dr Larbalastier’s exceptional skills. He led the team of surgeons and a team of 20 highly skilled staff during Aimee’s 10-hour lifesaving double lung transplant operation. I also congratulate the intensive care unit staff and many others who were part of the team who took care of Aimee.

Aimee remained in hospital for four months and even celebrated her 18th birthday in ward 6G before being discharged and moved to Shenton Park to continue her rehabilitation. Aimee’s future plans are to study a double major in law and human behavioural science, and, once recovered, she wants to advocate and inform young people about the importance of organ donation.

Most of all, I would like to thank and acknowledge the anonymous donor who gave Aimee her chance of life. With up to 1,800 people waiting for transplant procedures, we must endeavour to increase the level of awareness for organ and tissue donation so that the lives of people on the transplant waiting list can be transformed. And, yes, it is often the result of a tragedy for donors’ families, but it is a profoundly generous act on the part of an individual or their family. That is also why it is so important for anyone wanting to be a donor to make sure they tell their families that this is what they want to do. They should make it very clear.  The decision is then the decision of the donor and not one a grieving family has to make at a traumatic or sad time.

This bill will establish the Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Authority to champion a new national approach to provide world-leading access to transplants and transplant outcomes for Australia. It will provide the legislative framework to implement the measures included in the government’s $151.1 million reform package, announced in July 2008, to boost organ and tissue donation. The authority will operate in parallel with all state and territory law as this bill does not override or limit other laws. It also does not affect the operation of a state or territory law or a rule of common law requiring the giving of consent for the removal of an organ or tissue from the body of an individual.

I encourage everyone to consider signing up as an organ donor and letting your family know that this is your decision. For any one of us to know that we are able to offer a chance of life or a chance of a better life to another is, as I said, the ultimate gift. I say to each person: just imagine it is your child, your grandchild or someone you love who will die without a transplant. This should be the reason you sign up to be an organ donor, and also so that not one more of those people on the donor transplant list dies as a result of not receiving a transplant. I, along with my colleagues, strongly support this bill and encourage every Australian to register as a donor.

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