The life-saving choice
EXPERT PLEADS WITH AUSTRALIANS TO CONSIDER ORGAN DONATION AFTER MISCONCEPTIONS CUT NUMBERS
AN intensive care specialist is imploring Australians not to “rule themselves out” of being organ and tissue donors, after a survey revealed misconceptions were preventing potentially lifesaving registrations.
Misinformed views such as “I’m not healthy enough”, “I’m too old” and “donation is against my religion” remain rife among Australians, the YouGov and DonateLife poll shows, creating a chasm between support for donation and actual registrations.
Eighty per cent of the 1032 respondents were in favour of donation, with 58 per cent strongly in support.
But 58 per cent also believed some people were ineligible. This was not true, with anyone aged 16-plus able and encouraged to register, said Helen Opdam, the Organ and Tissue Authority’s national medical director and a senior intensive care specialist at Melbourne’s Austin Hospital.
“People shouldn’t rule themselves out – leave that to the medical experts,” Associate Professor Opdam said.
“We don’t need our organs and tissue after we die, and they would be lifesaving or lifetransforming for people on waiting lists and their families.
“We’re also all more likely to need a transplant in our lifetime than we are to die in circumstances where we can be a donor. People don’t say no to a transplant, so there’s a disconnect.”
The survey has been released amid DonateLife’s Great Registration Race, which aims to add 100,000 people to the Australian Organ Donor Register.
It exposed the following misconceptions:
PEOPLE who have had cancer, are unhealthy, smoke or drink and think they are too old are the most likely to believe they cannot become donors after they die;
THE groups Australians believe cannot become donors are men who have sex with men, people from the UK, religious people and people from overseas; and,
THAT registering to become a donor is too difficult and timeconsuming.
Anyone from these groups could register, in addition to those who have had Covid or have not had a Covid vaccination, drug users, people with other health conditions, and so on, Prof Opdam said.
“Registering only takes a minute,” she said, noting the process could be done via donatelife.gov.au, the Medicare app or the MyGov website.
The survey also found men were more likely than women to say something was preventing them registering (54 per cent compared with 43 per cent), and were twice as likely as the opposite sex to name the liver as the organ they would least likely donate.
The top reason they gave was they did not think their liver was healthy enough, causing Prof Opdam to suspect the drinking culture was fuelling this misconception.
Respondents said they were least likely to donate their eye tissue and heart, for reasons including it felt “too personal” or made them “squeamish”.
Prof Opdam urged people to reconsider these views, noting the 1472 Australians who became eye donors last year provided sight-restoring corneal transplants to 2413 recipients. And there were 36 fewer heart transplants in 2021 than 2020.
She also encouraged the 56 per cent of Aussies who had not told their family they supported organ and tissue donation to do so, as their relatives would ultimately decide whether they became a donor after death.
“Only about 1200 people a year die in circumstances where their organs can be donated,” she said. “And the consent rate from that group is only 60 per cent – that’s not consistent with where we think Australians’ generosity and willingness to donate is.
“The big disconnect is people not making their wishes known by their families. It doesn’t have to be a sombre conversation – it can be over the dinner table, (or) a brief comment while watching TV.”