A million Aussies’ mistake could be costing lives
Written by admin on July 14, 2024
Australians are being urged to take one minute to check their organ donor status, as new research indicates more than a million people nationwide incorrectly think they are registered.
An estimated 900,000 people in Victoria and Queensland alone are mistaken about their registration status, reveals a new survey commissioned by the Organ and Tissue Authority.
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The perception gap is widest in the Northern Territory (46 per cent perceived registration versus 16 per cent actual), followed by ACT (45 per cent vs. 27 per cent), Queensland (44 per cent vs. 31 per cent) and Victoria (31 per cent vs. 23 per cent).
OTA chief executive Lucinda Barry said the findings should be a wake-up call for everyone who supported donation to check that they were actually on the Australian Organ Donor Register.
She said many Australians incorrectly believed they were on the AODR as a result of ticking a box when they applied for or renewed their driver’s licence.
While this system exists in South Australia, it has not applied in the nation’s other states and territories for many years.
“This DonateLife Week, we need people check that they’re on the AODR via donatelife.gov.au or the Express Plus Medicare app,” she said. “It only takes a minute.”
Of the respondents to the survey of 2751 Australian adults who believed they had registered, two in five said they had done so via their licence. But three-quarters of that group also admitted they hadn’t checked that they were actually on the AODR.
Ms Barry said the research also showed the driver’s licence system was a widely preferred registration channel among Aussies – and the OTA wanted to see it reinstated across the country, to help reach its target of having 50 per cent of people aged 16-plus registered. The figure is currently 36 per cent.
“That would be another three million people on the register, (which would mean about) an extra 100 people a year receiving a lifesaving transplant,” she said.
“We’re talking to governments (about reinstating driver’s licence registration), and governments are also talking about it. The evidence from South Australia is very clear – they have the highest registration rate (of any Australian jurisdiction at 73 per cent) and the highest number of young people registered.”
SA Health Minister Chris Picton championed the system at a meeting with his fellow state and territory health ministers last year. His recommendation was then backed by parliamentary committees investigating lagging donor rates in Victoria and Western Australia.
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