House debates

Monday, 17 October 2016

Statements by Members

Australian Red Cross

1:44 pm

Photo of Matt KeoghMatt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

To keep up with demand for blood in Australia, the Red Cross estimates it needs a donation every 24 seconds—all day, every day, year round. I rise today to pay tribute to one of my constituents, who has taken it upon himself to fill as much of that shortfall in blood as one person possibly can. At the age of 34, Terry Healy, a City of Gosnells councillor and WA Labor's candidate for the seat of Southern River for the 2017 state election, became the youngest Australian ever to join the '300 Club'—that is, the youngest person on record to have donated 300 litres of blood to the Australian Red Cross. To put that into context, the average human has around five litres of blood in their body. So Terry has given the equivalent of his entire body's supply of blood 60 times over. Terry first donated as a 17-year-old and, to have reached 300 litres, would have donated more than 600 times during his life. But most important is the hundreds of lives that Terry will have saved through his generosity.

Provision of blood is essential to the work of our hospital system. One in three Australians will need blood in their lifetime, but only one in 30 donates. Put bluntly, we never have enough. So I call on everyone in this place and across Australia to be like Terry—donate whenever you can. You will be saving lives and, if you are young enough, you may even get to knock off Terry's record.