Did you know only one in three Australians have joined the national Organ Donor Register, even though 81% believe registration of donation decisions is important?
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This is a statistic the Singleton Heights Public School community were motivated to highlight during DonateLife Week.
Inspired by one of their own; students and staff wore magenta – or purple – on Thursday, August 2 to raise awareness not just funds.
Due to a genetic condition, five months ago School Learning Support Officer (SLSO) Roschelle Pettit had a kidney transplant.
And, while she was lucky enough to receive a healthy organ from her husband; others are still in need.
Roschelle says making the decision to become an organ and tissue donor can save up to ten lives.
“This is such an important conversation people need to be having,” she says.
While student Emma Crosswell, and her family, are well aware of the how important registering to become a donor is.
Her uncle in Demark has an inherited heart condition which led to him, and his two sons, undergoing a transplant.
Unfortunately, his eldest son passed away five years after receiving his new heart.
In Denmark they are trying to change the law when it comes to organ donation so it works on the basis of opting out rather than registering.
- Tove Crosswell
“He started to reject it and became very ill but they got him to hospital and thought it would be alright,” explains Emma’s mother, Tove Crosswell.
She says the doctors had to make a tough decision when he was so ill but things may have been different if there were more donor hearts available.
“In Denmark they are trying to change the law when it comes to organ donation so it works on the basis of opting out rather than registering,” says Tove.
Around 1,400 Australians are currently waitlisted for a life-saving organ transplant and a further 11 000 are on dialysis, many of whom would benefit from a kidney transplant.
Australia is ranked twenty in the world for organ donation.
We are behind countries such as Croatia, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
Recent international studies have demonstrated that implementation of an opt out system of organ procurement would increase donation rates by fifty per cent.