The Prime Minister Kevin Rudd joined with Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Mark Butler, to launch Australian Organ and Tissue Donor Week 2010 at Parliament House today, and asked all Australian families to think about organ donation, and to talk about and know each other's wishes about donation.
The theme of this year's Australian Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week is family discussion in a bid to help lift the nation's family consent rate of just 56%.
While around 80% of Australians express widespread support for organ donation, currently 1 in 2 Australians don't know the wishes of their family members and 1 in 3 Australians don't know that their family's consent is required for donation to proceed.
To help get families talking, the Prime Minister launched a Family Discussion Kit, a new resource which provides facts about organ and tissue donation, dispels some of the more commonly-held myths and shares stories of donor and recipient families. The Family Discussion Kit is a practical guide to help families have a memorable conversation.
The kit is designed to help family members make a decision, with confidence, about the organ and tissue donation wishes of a family member. Taking the time to have a family discussion that everyone remembers could one day give another Australian a second chance at life.
It forms part of the DonateLife Family public awareness program, which is backed up by a workforce of medical specialists called the DonateLife Network. The Network consists of 76 major hospitals across Australia and over 160 staff, including State Medical Directors, Hospital Medical Directors and senior nurses and specialist organ donor coordinators who are dedicated to improving Australia's organ and tissue donation rates.
Last year 799 Australians and their families benefited from the generous act of donation from 247 organ donors. However, at the beginning of February, there were still 1,742 Australians on official waiting lists waiting for the phone call that could save their life.
The Prime Minister also thanked all the DonateLife clinicians and community organisations that play a vital role in helping Australians make informed decisions about becoming organ and tissue donors.
Community organisations provide essential awareness and education events as well as advocacy and support for donor families, transplant recipients and families awaiting transplantations.
For more information and to download a copy of the Family Discussion Kit please visit www.donatelife.gov.au/family.