According to ShareLife, in 2017 Australia was ranked 16th in the world for organ donation rates, at 20.8 donors per million of population (DPMP). If Australia matched the top-ranked nation, Spain, with a DPMP of 47, an additional 1700 Australians could receive a transplant each year.
Spain had the highest donor rate in the world, 46.9 per million people in the population, in 2017.
Consent rates
In 2022, 54% of families said yes to donation when asked in a hospital setting compared to 56% in 2021.
Australia has an 'opt-in' informed consent model of donation whereby a person with decision-making capacity may choose whether or not to donate their organs and tissue. To opt-in, a person aged 18 or over must record their consent to donation on the Australian Organ Donation Register.
1). In 2015, kidneys were the organ most frequently transplanted from deceased donors (718), followed by lungs (375) (AOTDTA 2016). In 2014, there were 267 living donor kidney transplants (ANZDATA 2016).
Who can donate organs and tissue? Almost everyone can donate organs and tissue. While age and medical history will be considered, don't assume you are too young, old or unhealthy to become a donor. You need to be aged 18 years or over to legally record your consent on the Australian Organ Donor Register.
“Where extracorporeal machines or transplantation can support or replace the function of organs such as the heart, lung, liver or kidney, the brain is the only organ that cannot be supported or replaced by medical technology.”
In Australia the law which allows deceased organ and tissue donation says that a person has died where brain function or circulation of blood in that person's body has permanently stopped. In DCD, organ donation occurs after death where the circulation of blood has permanently stopped.
For around 1,800 Australians on the waitlist for an organ transplant, it can be a matter of life and death. A further 14,000 people are on dialysis, some who may benefit from a kidney transplant. Registering and telling your family that you want to be an organ and tissue donor is easy.
Some of the critical ethical issues that require aggressive interference are organ trafficking, payments for organs, and the delicate balance in live donations between the benefit to the recipient and the possible harm to the donor and others.
The Donor Register allows authorised medical personnel to verify a person's decision about donating their organs and tissue for transplantation. Registrations are arranged by age group, state and gender. Total registrations as at 30 April 2023: 7,593,371.
While most living donors provide a kidney for transplant, an increasing number of people donate a segment of their liver. In 2022, there were 603 liver transplants involving living donors, an annual record and an increase of nearly 6 percent above the total in 2021.
While transplanted organs can last the rest of your life, many don't. Some of the reasons may be beyond your control: low-grade inflammation from the transplant could wear on the organ, or a persisting disease or condition could do to the new organ what it did to the previous one.
Cecil F. Lockhart of Welch was 95 years old when he passed away May 4 after a short illness. He served his country during World War II and contributed to his community by mining coal for more than 50 years, and his desire to serve others continued when his donated liver aided a 62-year-old woman.
Most living donations happen between family members or close friends; however, others choose to be living donors for someone they don't know, which is known as non-directed or altruistic donation. Nearly 6,000 living donations take place each year.
With the highest donor rates in the world for 24 years running, Spain is considered the gold standard for organ donations. In 2015 with 39.7 donors per million, 4,769 transplants were performed in Spain.
New registration. By filling in the form below, you are registering to become an organ and tissue donor. This means that one day you could save the lives of many people. Anyone in Australia aged 16 and over can register.
Over 100,000 Americans await organ transplants and over 6,000 die annually while waiting. From an economic perspective the decades-long organ shortage has a simple cause: paying organ donors is illegal. Price controls predictably produce shortages. Payment for organs has been outlawed since at least 1948.
Since the national program was introduced in 2009 there has been an overall trend of significant growth in organ donation rates, which has resulted in more than 14,000 Australians receiving a lifesaving transplant.
Australia remains below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country average of 0.30 per cent, and among the least generous donors.
Cadaveric Donors
Also called non-living or deceased donors (preferred term), are those who donate their organs or tissue after they have died.
People needing liver or heart transplants often need to wait nine or more months. Recipients are assessed for compatibility to the donor (not just blood type, but for six different tissue antigen subtypes as well as general body size – e.g. putting an adult heart into a small child is not possible).
In heart transplants, the rate of organ rejection and patient mortality are the highest, even though the transplants are monitored by regular biopsies. Specifically, some 40% of heart recipients experience some type of severe rejection within one year of their transplant.
Yes, a uterus can be donated from either a living or deceased donor. A living uterus donor gives her uterus for the purpose of transplantation to a female recipient. Potential living donors are women between 30 and 50 years of age who have completed their child bearing and are in generally good health.
For example, thoracic organs, like the heart and lungs, can only remain viable for transplant after being outside the body for four to six hours, while the liver can function for up to 12 hours and kidneys for up to 36 hours.