Register and discuss to save lives in DonateLife Week 2016
(Sunday 31 July – Sunday 7 August)
Over 1,100 Rotary Clubs across Australia are partnering up with the national DonateLife Week campaign to urge families to register and discuss their organ and tissue donation decisions to help save more lives.
While the majority of Australians support organ and tissue donation, only one in three Australians have actually joined the national Register.
Registering on the Australian Organ Donor Register is important because it leaves your family in no doubt of your decision to save lives as an organ and tissue donor.
Nine in ten families agree to donation proceeding where their loved one was a registered donor, compared to just 52% where the deceased was not a registered donor and the family had no prior knowledge of their wishes.
More than 1,500 Australians are waiting for a life-saving transplant. During DonateLife Week, we’re asking people in our community, ‘What are you waiting for? Join the Australian Organ Donor Register online today at donatelife.gov.au.
To optimise every potential organ and tissue donation, we need every Australian family to decide and register online on the Australian Organ Donor Register, and to discuss and know each other’s donation decisions.
The face of the national Rotary campaign in 2016 is Rotarian Steve Gribbin, a husband and dad aged 51. Steve was a technical officer at Tamworth Regional Council NSW until medically retired in June 2013. Steve's liver was badly damaged by exposure to hepatitis C (he thinks from a tattoo), and he was on the liver transplant waiting list from January 2015 for almost 12 months.
"I felt hopeless and useless and longed to be a contributing member of society again. Life was a matter of day to day survival for me" said Steve. “The amazingly generous donation of a liver has changed my life and that of my family.”
Professor Simone Strasser from Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Sydney said, “Transplantation is the only treatment that is going to give a desperately sick person with liver failure or other organ failure the chance of survival. To have the opportunity to return to a healthy and productive life is extraordinary. Every day I am astounded by the amazing impact that a life-saving transplant has on our patients and their families. The whole Australian community must work together to deliver this life-saving treatment.”
DonateLife Week is Australia’s national awareness week to promote organ and tissue donation and is led by the Organ and Tissue Authority.
