Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise, as all my colleagues have today, to support the Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Authority Bill 2008. Australia has one of the highest success rates in organ and tissue transplantation in the world. We are very good at it; our success rates are right up there, yet we have one of the lowest organ and tissue donation rates in the world. Australia’s organ and tissue donation rate is approximately 10 donors per million of population. Most of the OECD countries have at least a 50 per cent higher rate and some of them have rates as much as 100 per cent to 200 per cent higher.

Over recent years, the rate of organ donation has not really got any better. In 2002, we donated 206 organs. It dropped to 179, and then went up to 218, down to 204 and back down to 202, so it has stayed relatively stable over the last five years. This bill is about changing that; it is about drawing on the best practice models from around the world and making lasting change—making sure that we in Australia can use our exceptional skills in transplant operation to save lives.

The Prime Minister in his speech in the House earlier this week suggested that we all need to talk about organ donation, and I think in fact that we do. I am going to talk a little bit about why I find even speaking on this issue incredibly confronting. I do not know whether I am on my own on this, but I suspect that there are many people that have similar completely irrational responses to the idea of having their organs removed even once they are of no use to them. I would say that I did not realise exactly how confronted I was until I went down to the Red Cross to fill in the forms. Once I was elected as a member of parliament I was asked to do it. I thought it was a good opportunity to do the right thing, so I went down to fill in the form. I did fill in the form. I sent it in and I am a registered donor, but I did find it incredibly confronting.

While I do not have any irrational response—in fact, I have quite a positive response—to the idea that my organs might end up in someone else, I have this irrational response—almost a repulsion—to the idea that they might be taken out of me. It is completely irrational. I have no problem whatsoever with the idea that someone else’s organs might be put in me. In fact, I think that would probably be quite a good idea. So I found myself in the odd situation of realising that, while I was happy to accept someone else’s organs, I was having real trouble with donating my own. That is quite an interesting position to be in.

I did it, and I think we all do it, because there is nothing more repulsive than the idea that someone desperately in need of an organ would die because mine went to waste. That is why I am an organ donor. Because our responses to it are sometimes so irrational, it is something that we need to openly discuss among ourselves and with our families. It an incredibly important bill that we are looking at at the moment. There are currently 3,000 people, children and adults, on the official organ and tissue transplant waiting list in Australia who are waiting for life-saving surgery and for the donation of a heart, kidney, lung, liver, pancreas or cornea to transplant. Of those waiting for heart, lung or liver transplants, around 20 per cent will die before they receive one.

The reality in Australia, because of our low donation rates, is that we do not even put everybody in need of a transplant on the official transplant lists. There are currently around 8,000 people undergoing dialysis treatment in Australia and that number increases by about six per cent every year. But, on the official transplant waiting list for a kidney, there are only about 1,500 and the waiting list on average for those people is about four years. The other 6,500 people are not put on the list because it is considered to be futile. The chances of them receiving a transplant would be very, very poor because there simply are not enough donors.

We do need to act, and this bill is about making those fundamental changes. It establishes the Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Authority to provide national leadership to the organ and tissue sector and to drive, implement and monitor national reform initiatives and programs aimed at increasing Australia’s willingness to donate and access to lifesaving and transforming transplants.

It establishes a national authority with funding of $24.4 million over four years. Perhaps even more importantly than that, the authority will have responsibility for implementing a $151.1 million reform package which includes new funding of around $136 million over four years. That extra money for the reform package does some incredibly important things to change the way we Australians respond to the issue of organ donation.

It provides $67 million to fund dedicated organ donation specialist doctors and other staff in the public and private hospitals around Australia. It provides $70 million in new funding for hospitals to meet the additional staffing, bed and infrastructure costs associated with organ donation, $13.4 million to continue national public awareness and education programs to increase knowledge about organ and tissue donation and to build confidence in Australia’s donation and transplantation system and $1.9 million to support the families of deceased donors. It also introduces other measures, including the creation of a national network of state and territory based organ and tissue donation agencies to facilitate the process, an enhanced training and education program for hospital and staff and a program to encourage increased donations by the Australian public.

Collectively, these measures are expected to establish Australia as a world leader in best practice organ donation for transplantation and to achieve significant and lasting results in a number of lives in our country. It is incredibly important legislation. It is overdue. This is something that Australia’s medical profession does incredibly well but that the community at large does far less well. We believe on this side, and I know it is supported by the opposition, that these reforms will dramatically improve the life expectancy of people who are currently suffering from quite severe illnesses. It is a very important bill and I commend it to the House.

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