Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I'd like to speak about Murray, a constituent of mine in Wentworth. Murray is 41 and suffers full myelofibrosis, a deeply serious condition which requires a bone marrow transplant. Murray is not alone: more than 600 people will receive a lifesaving blood stem cell donation this year, some before their first birthday. There are more than 160,000 registered donors on the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Register, but that's not enough. The register is shrinking because more people are ageing out of the donor pool than new people joining it, and the pool is not big enough. There are three times as many donor searches as transplants each year, meaning that three in four patients failed to find a match. This is partly because the donor pool is often older and less diverse than the Australian population, which means that patients like Murray must look overseas. This is difficult, time-consuming and expensive.

The good news is that it's easy to become a donor. All it takes is a cheek swab, and it's easy for government to support a massive cheek swab rollout. The register already has funding and resources; it just needs agreement from state and territory health ministers. I have written to the ministers about this issue, and I'm calling on them to do the right thing. It's a no-brainer: if other countries can do this, so can we. Let the register roll out cheek swabs so that we can get more and more transplants, and help to save lives.