Transplant recipient encourages donor registrations

A STRATHFIELDSAYE liver transplant recipient is urging people to think about becoming organ donors as the national donor awareness week approaches.

Jane Roulston is this year celebrating the 10-year anniversary of her transplant – which she is calling her ‘liverversary’ – and said that it was literally a life saver.

“I haven’t got a problem; everything’s going really well,” Mrs Roulston said.

Mrs Roulston was diagnosed with a life-threatening liver condition in 2014 and was placed on the waiting list for a transplant.

Thanks to the generosity of a family who chose to donate a loved one’s organs, she received her transplant the following year.

Mrs Roulston said that without the transplant, she would not have seen her two daughters – now aged 23 and 25 – grow up.

“I wasn’t going to live if I didn’t get one,” she said. “I probably had a week or two to live.”

The 58-year-old, who will have a birthday on 31 July, will mark the 10-year milestone by taking an extended international cruise with husband Glenn later this year.

They’ll be flying to Hawaii in October and will spend the next couple of weeks cruising back to Australia.

In the meantime, she plans to be an active part of DonateLife Week.

“Illness requiring transplantation can happen to anyone,” said Mrs Roulston, who now volunteers to attend DonateLife Victoria events to help spread the word.

“Until you go through it, it’s hard to understand it. Through organ donation, you could save a life.

“It is so important to register and tell your family.”

DonateLife Week is Australia’s main national awareness-raising week for organ and tissue donation, and this year runs from Sunday 27 July to Sunday 3 August.

According to DonateLife Victoria, four in five Australians support donation but only one in three are actually registered on the Australian Organ Donor Register.

Its research shows that 80 per cent of families consent to donation if someone is registered, but that drops to just 40 per cent if families do not know a person wanted to donate or if a person has not registered.

One organ donor can save the lives of up to seven people and there are about 1800 people on the organ transplant waiting list. Many more can also be helped by eye and tissue donation.

Even when somebody registers, their family will always be asked to support the decision before organ donation goes ahead. The process is anonymous.

People wanting to donate organs or tissue can register at donatelife.gov.au or through their Medicare account.

And they must remember to tell their families of their wishes.