Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House:

(1)

notes with concern the low rate of organ donation in Australia;

(2)

acknowledges the plight of the more than 1,700 Australians currently on the organ transplant waiting list;

(3)

recognises the crucial role of public education in encouraging people to register as organ donors and discuss their choice with family members;

(4)

welcomes the announcement from the Australian Health Ministers’ Conference of the National Reform Agenda on organ and tissue donation; and

(5)

calls on the Federal Government to investigate the experience of other countries that have adopted an ‘opt-out’ system of organ donor registration.

This motion and my interest in the status of organ donation in Australia came about following a meeting with a family in my electorate whose life for the past six months or so has been one long, agonising wait for a phone call—the phone call that will bring the news that a donor has been found for their daughter. Kate Backhouse is a young woman of 25 who has spent her life battling cystic fibrosis. At the time her family came to see me, she had been waiting for six months for a double lung transplant. Two months on and Kate, like almost 2,000 other Australians on transplant waiting lists, is still waiting for a suitable donor to be found so that she can have the transplant she needs and get on with her life. The family’s story was a wake-up call for me. Like many Australians, I have heard the stories in the media about successful transplants and had simply assumed that organ donation is a matter of course. But that is far from the case.

Here in Australia we have one of the highest rates of success for transplant procedures but one of the lowest rates of organ donation. The rate of donation in Australia, at 10 people per year per one million head of population, is half that of countries such as the US and Italy and only one-third of that in Spain, which has the highest rate of organ donation. To give an idea of what those figures mean for the almost 2,000 people on transplant waiting lists, consider this. In 2004 there were just 218 donors in Australia. By the end of July this year 101 people had donated their organs. To express it in even more stark terms, more than one Australian dies each week waiting for a transplant.

For those Australians waiting patiently for a transplant, life can be very difficult: the long wait, the suffering in silence, never knowing if your number will come up and you will receive that second chance at life. The answer, of course, is obvious: we need more donors. But in the past that goal has proved difficult to achieve. Figures released today by Australians Donate highlight the challenge we face. They show that while 94 per cent of Australians support organ and tissue donation only 30 per cent have registered their consent to be organ donors.

One part of the solution is to encourage Australians at every opportunity to register their consent to be an organ donor by adding their name to the Australian Organ Donor Register, either online or using the form available at all Medicare offices. Five million Australians have already taken that step; however, registration is not the end of the story. Everyone I talk to in this field stresses the importance of informing your family of your wish to be a donor. If your family is not aware of your wishes, then it is quite likely that they will, understandably, not be supportive of any request for organs at such a traumatic time.

No-one knows that better than people like Debbie Austen, who works as the Organ Donor Coordinator for the Rockhampton Health Service District. I spoke to Debbie about this a few weeks ago. Part of her job is to interview the parents and family of deceased patients to see whether or not they will agree to the donation of their loved one’s organs. Her experience is consistent with figures that were printed in the Australian in July this year. The article quoted the chief executive officer of Transplant Australia, Mark Cocks, as saying that their figures show that, if the potential donor has told their loved ones of their intent to be a donor, 80 per cent of the time the family will agree to organ donation but, if they did not tell their family, the refusal rate is around 50 per cent. My conversation with Deb also brought up the role of those specialist advisers in hospitals. There is far more focus now on the job that they do.

A classic example of what needs to be done in that area comes from the Medical Journal of Australia, which reports a study done in Victoria where, of 17,000 deaths, there were 280 potential organ donors. In 60 of those cases, organ donation was not requested from relatives at the time of the potential donor’s death. There is a feeling in Australian hospitals that many potential donors are going unidentified, and the role that a specialist organ donation coordinator could play in the hospital is very important for making sure that families are approached about donation and converting potential donors to donors for those people requiring transplants. This is starting to get some attention, with $26 million in the budget this year going towards education measures and an expansion in the number of organ donor coordinators. (Time expired)

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Capricornia for this very fine motion. Indeed, in my five years in the national parliament, this is one of the finest that I have read, and I commend it very much. Today, like the member for Capricornia, I had the great pleasure of meeting Alisa Camplin. She is, of course, an Olympic gold and bronze medallist. She is a very fine Australian sportswoman, but she is also a great Australian because of the cause that she has taken up. She has taken up the worthy position of ambassador to promote greater organ donation in this country.

I want to thank her on behalf of the Ryan electorate, which I have the great honour of representing here in the parliament. She is a champion for this initiative and I thank her for that. Australians Donate, the community organisation and peak national body seeking to promote organ and tissue donation for transplantation, have put out a brochure that quotes Alisa Camplin saying:

“I am registered as an organ donor and also the lucky recipient of a tissue donation.

As a result of the wonderful generosity of a donor, I was able to have an operation that enabled me to compete at the Turin Winter Olympics and win a bronze medal.

I know that many people in Australia are waiting for life saving transplants or for operations that improve their life and as a result of my good fortune I want to help others by encouraging Aussies to think about organ and tissue donation.

I am a donor, and I am sure that many of my colleagues in the parliament are also donors. I have been registered as a donor since I was able to indicate this on my drivers licence. Today in the parliament with the author of this motion, the member for Capricornia, I want to join in calling upon my fellow Australians to be generous of spirit and to register their name on the registry of Australians Donate to take up this cause. It is a very great gift one can give to one’s fellow Australians. Of course, you need to be 18 years of age to give your legal consent. You can do this through registering at a Medicare office. It is a pretty straightforward form. You just indicate your personal details and those will be held in confidence by the relevant authority.

In Spain 35 people per million are registered as donors; in the USA, 21 donors per million people; in the UK, 13 donors per million people; and, in our country, only 10 Australian donors are registered per million Australians. In 2005 there were some 1,600 people on the organ transplant waiting list. In 2006 1,700 Australians are on the waiting list. There are many more Australians waiting for the greatest gift one could give than there are organs available to them. Being an organ donor is all about giving someone the very special gift of life. It is about saving lives. So far in Australia there have been some 30,000 Australians who have benefited from the wonderful generosity of their fellow Australians.

I ask Australians who might be listening to imagine for a moment that they have a loved one—it might be their daughter, son, mum, dad, brother or sister—who needs a lung, a heart, a pancreas or a liver. In today’s wonderful world of medical technology, science and advancement, they can have the opportunity to survive if they have an organ transplant. Those who are fortunate enough to experience the generosity of their fellow Australians are enormously grateful. They consider it a great privilege that they have been able to have their lives extended by the great gift of someone else.

In the parliament today, again I want to express my thanks to Australians Donate, the organisation that promotes organ donation, and to thank the chair, Marcia Coleman, and the national manager, Stephen Bendle, for their commitment to expanding awareness in the Australian community of organ donors.

There is great potential for many more Australians to have their lives extended if Australians strongly consider registering their name on the relevant form with Medicare. I want to encourage the Ryan community to consider this if they feel that they can do it. Of course, you have to be 18 or over, but it is something that I encourage families to discuss. It is very important, as the author of this motion, the member for Capricornia, said, for people to discuss this in their homes and with their families. If people have the intention of registering— (Time expired)

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to congratulate the member for Capricornia on bringing this motion to the House. It is a very important motion and one that all Australians should be aware of. The key fact for everybody to remember is that organ donation saves lives. Without organ donation many people would have lost their lives.

If one person donates their organs and tissues after their death, they are in a position to donate a heart, liver, lungs, kidneys and pancreas as well as corneas, skin, bone and heart valves. This is an enormous contribution that can be made to people’s lives. In 2004, there were 218 organ donors. From those 218 organ donors, 782 people received transplants. In 2003, there were 179 organ donors and 619 people received transplants. It is quite obvious that if one person says that they are prepared to donate their organs and tissues after their death they can have an enormous impact.

It has already been mentioned that in Australia we have a fairly low rate of people who have indicated that they are prepared to be donors. The figure is 11 donors per million population, which is one of the lowest in the developed world. Compare that with Spain, where the figure is 34 donors per million population. Spain is the benchmark; it is the country that has the highest number of donors per million population. The figure is 21.5 donors per million population in the US and 12.9 in the UK. That was in 2002.

I call on Australians to join with many of us here in the parliament who have registered as organ donors. It is quite easy to do. The Australian Organ Donor Register is administered by Medicare. You can get a form similar to the one I have here in my hand—‘Sign on to save lives’—from your local Medicare office. Remember what I have said about the enormous impact that it can make on people’s lives.

I have a constituent, Keith Galdino, who has had a liver transplant. When I asked him what his transplant meant to him, he told me it had given him a new life. He received his liver in 1994. He would have had one week before his condition became terminal. He got a phone call at 7.40 on a Thursday night. The ambulance arrived shortly afterwards and he was taken to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. He was on the operating table at 3 pm the next day and he had a 17½-hour operation. He was in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital for six weeks after the operation. Then he went to Queen Mary’s Hospital for another six weeks. He returned home after three months.

Since he has had the transplant Keith has been involved in the World Transplant Games. He has been very successful at that level. He has won eight international medals and many national medals. He is going to be competing in the games in Geelong later this year. He is the member protection information officer for Transplant Australia in New South Wales.

I asked Keith what message he would like to give to this parliament and the Australian people. His words were: ‘Don’t bury or burn your organs. Donate them.’ That is a very important message for all Australians. Don’t bury or burn your organs; donate them because you can save many lives by doing this. Mr Galdino is a man who has made a considerable contribution to his community since he has had his transplant. His contribution would be reflected time and again by other people who receive transplants. (Time expired)

Kay Elson (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to have the opportunity today to speak on the motion of the member for Capricornia. She has raised a very important issue that deserves as much debate as possible. I agree with much of her motion.

It has always seemed to me to be a strange anomaly that in Australia—a nation that is renowned for its generosity, with one of the highest per capita financial donation rates in the world and one of the highest per capita volunteer rates in the world, and a nation where the ideal of helping out someone in need is at the heart of our nation’s ethos—we have one of the lowest organ and tissue donation rates in the world. As has been stated here already, the number of donors in Australia is just 11 per million population. That is half the US level of 21 and less than a third that of Spain, which, at 34 donors per million population, has the highest donation rate in the world.

It is very true that, as the motion states, public education plays a crucial role in encouraging people to register as organ donors and to discuss the issue of organ donation with their families. In this respect, the Howard government has been proactive. Last year we strengthened the Australian Organ Donor Register to make it a national register and to make it legally valid consent. We have had several awareness and community education campaigns and have recently announced new funding of $28 million over the next four years to fund a variety of initiatives, all aimed at raising donor rates.

The more that we can encourage Australian families to think and talk about this issue, the more Australians’ lives we can save—and that is really the bottom line. We have around 1,700 Australians waiting for donor organs and, sadly, some of those people will die waiting. Last year, 204 deceased Australians were able to give the gift of life and improve the health of over 700 grateful recipients. We have a very effective health system and highly trained doctors, but we just do not have enough donors. That is really the bottom line. I personally have registered myself as a donor but, more importantly, I have discussed this with my family and they know my wishes. That is one very important aspect of registering to donate your organs. I encourage other Australians to do so immediately.

I see no harm in the member for Capricornia’s suggestion in her motion that the government investigate the possibility of an opt-out system, although personally I am not convinced that this would solve the problem. While it is true that the opt-out system is in place in Spain, which has the highest donor rate, it is also in operation in Greece, which has an even lower donor rate than us at just eight donors per million people. So implementing an opt-out system is not necessarily the answer to the problem. I also personally think that automatic registration for what for many is a deeply personal and difficult issue has the potential to cause even more trauma for families at a difficult time.

Clearly the best way forward is to have people discuss their wishes and let their family know exactly what they want. We Australians are a pretty stoic bunch, and we tend not to discuss issues like death in any great detail with our families. But this is an issue which provides life and hope to many hundreds of Australians each year. Organ transplants enable people to get a second chance at life and to spend more years with their loved ones. We should always keep it uppermost in our minds that the recipient could be one of our loved ones or one of our friends and thus how important organ donation is for many of our fellow Australians and the difference it can make.

In closing, I pay tribute to the late Aussie cricket hero David Hookes for the remarkable role that he and his family have played in raising awareness of this issue. There is no doubt that his decision to donate his organs has directly saved the lives of many others. In an indirect way he has also raised awareness, and hopefully over time that will translate into many more lives being saved. The Howard government is very committed to working to raise the level of organ donation in Australia, and I thank the member for Capricornia for giving me the chance to speak on this issue in the House.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak in support of the member for Capricornia’s private member’s motion on organ donation. I also take this opportunity to congratulate the member for Capricornia on bringing such an important issue to be debated in the House. The advances the human race has made in both knowledge and ability over the last 100 years are mind-boggling, in no area more so, I suggest, than medicine. While flying to the moon and back was pure fantasy 100 years ago, so too was the thought of an organ being donated and the ability of science and doctors to transplant that organ into another body. In this debate I make mention of the advances that have been made in organ and tissue transplantation.

Transplantation accounts date back to at least the second century BC, however full or limited people’s understanding of the factors was at the time. A Chinese physician, Pien Ch’iao, notionally attempted to swap hearts between a man of strong spirit and weak will and another of weak spirit and strong will, thus making two balanced men. Saint Damian and Saint Cosmas of the third century reportedly replaced the gangrenous leg of the Roman deacon Justinian with the leg of a person recently deceased. However, the success of an operation and whether or not it was even attempted is questionable. The Italian surgeon Gaspare Tagliacozzi advanced the concept of transplant rejection in 1596, attributing the phenomenon to the ‘force and power of individuality’.

The 20th century saw the first successful corneal transplant, in 1905 in Austria. Alexis Carrel of France won the 1912 Nobel Prize for Medicine for advancing new suturing techniques, possibly developed from 1902 through successfully removing dogs’ kidneys, hearts and spleens. Joseph Murray of the United States of America performed the first successful kidney transplant in 1954. It was successful because the donor and recipient were identical twins with a consequent lack of rejection. So the advances go on.

The fact that we have thousands of transplants taking place around the world today is remarkable and is a blessing for the receiving patients, their families and their loved ones. Most importantly, while the knowledge and skills that have been recently developed are mind-boggling, they will not be of much use without organ donors. Organ donation clinical practices are governed by state and territory human tissues acts, regulations and guidelines, which are generally developed and applied with reference to the National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines on ethical organ donation and transplantation practices.

In pursuit of donors, state departments for motor vehicle registrations have asked licensed drivers to nominate themselves as organ donors. This is only indicative, though, expressing intent but not consent. Consent is now established through registering with the Australian Organ Donor Register, provided that the donor is aged 18 or over. Sixteen- and 17-year-olds can only register their intent on the Australian Organ Donor Register. I encourage all Australians to consider registering. We know that organ donations save lives.

On the national reform agenda on organ and tissue donation, the Australian Health Ministers’ Conference announced on 27 July 2006 its intent to increase the rate of safe, effective and ethical organ and tissue donation for transplantation in Australia. The agenda will be advanced by the AHMAC Inter-governmental Committee on Organ and Tissue Donation, no doubt benefiting from the new national expert task force of clinicians and specialists chaired by Professor Jeremy Chapman OAM.

The agenda will no doubt also be advanced by Australians Donate community champions, the first of whom is Winter Olympics medallist Alisa Camplin. Alisa benefited enough from a tendon transplanted just 121 days before the 2006 Winter Olympics to go on and win a bronze medal in skiing. I am sure that we all wish Alisa well in her voluntary role as advocate for the benefits of organ and tissue transplantation, and that her work and that of others continues to build the Organ Donor Register well into the future. I echo the comment made by the member for Shortland in her speech when she said, ‘Don’t bury and burn but donate them.’

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the motion moved by the member for Capricornia concerning the low rate of organ donation in Australia, and commend her for putting this motion before the House.

Today, I want to pay particular tribute to a special organ donor from my electorate of Riverina. In February, the life of a vivacious and greatly loved young woman by the name of Tina Elliott, who was just 20 years of age, was tragically cut short. Tina and her family are from Griffith, and Tina attended the Griffith North Public School and then went on to Griffith High School. Tina was a keen art student and she was always willing to help out in the community. She was involved in Meals on Wheels, and you could see Tina marching proudly at Anzac Day services. She was tragically killed in a car accident near Griffith.

Tina touched so many people in her life—so much so that in the 2004 Australia Day awards Tina was nominated for the Australia Day Young Citizen of the Year Award for her tireless work as an executive member of the Creative Riverina Youth Team. As I said, Tina’s life was tragically cut short by a car accident, and after she passed away she saved lives through her organ donation. Her parents, Ross and Cathie Elliott, and her brother Michael, decided to donate Tina’s organs, and five people’s lives were saved by receiving these organs.

After receiving a call advising the family that the successful transplants of Tina’s lungs, kidney, pancreas, liver and heart valves had been performed, Mr Elliott was quoted as saying, ‘She touched the lives of so many—it puts me at peace to know she is saving lives and still touching lives this way.’ It was so wonderful to know that Tina had been able to make a difference to so many people’s lives through this gift. It is also wonderful that Tina’s parents and her brother Michael were able to make the decision to donate Tina’s organs at such a tragic time. So I pay great tribute to Tina’s family and to Tina on the life that she led and the life that she has given other people by way of this very generous gift.

We also need to consider the option of our live organ donation scheme. I have the great honour of knowing a lovely young couple in my electorate who have just moved to Queensland. Alan has been struggling with kidney failure for many years and has daily dialysis. He was scheduled for a kidney transplant late last year, from a live organ donor from another state. He was actually scheduled to have his kidney transplant on Melbourne Cup Day last year. Just prior to that, he became very ill, and his transplant operation had to be put off. Alan and Kimberley would love to have children, and it may just be possible when Alan is well enough, because a warm-hearted person is prepared to donate a kidney to Alan so that he and Kimberley may have a life that is normal and, hopefully, a life that is going to be blessed with children in the future.

We sometimes find it difficult as families to prepare ourselves for and give consent to organ donations. That is why I ask that people consider making submissions regarding the two draft documents that are currently on display and that deal with organ and tissue donation by living donors. There is the opportunity to make submissions on Organ and tissue donation by living donors: ethical guidelines for health professionals, and on Making a decision about living organ and tissue donation. The closing date for these submissions is Monday, 2 October, and I urge all people to consider making a submission in order to understand how this process really works. Organ donation is something that the Australian people need to embrace in a more enthusiastic way, simply because there is so much that can be achieved for so many if we are able to donate these organs and give up the use of them in our day-to-day lives. It is very important that we consider living organ donations.

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.