THIS week marks DonateLife Week — a national awareness week designated to help
promote organ and tissue donation within Australia.
Led by the Organ and
Tissue Authority as part of the Australian Government’s National Reform Agenda
to increase organ and tissue donation rates, the week encourages family members
to openly discuss the issue.
This year’s theme is ‘Make your wish count —
discover, decide and discuss organ and tissue donation.’
Recent statistics
released by the Australia and New Zealand Organ Donation Registry and the Organ
and Tissue Authority reveal more Australians became organ donors or received a
life-saving transplant in 2012 than in any previous year.
Chief executive
officer of the Organ and Tissue Authority Yael Cass said while these figures
were encouraging, the authority remained committed “to further increasing
donation and transplantation rates in the coming years.”
Ms Cass said families played a crucial role in determining donation outcomes as
they ultimately provided the final consent for the donation to
proceed.”Families that agree to their loved one becoming an organ and tissue
donor do so in the face of traumatic loss and grief,” Ms Cass said.”The
conversation you have today could one day transform the lives of 10 or more
people.
For more of this story see Friday’s Guardian (March 1).
