BY DAKOTA TAIT
The Hunter's being urged to consider signing up as an organ and tissue donor, this Donate Life Week.
The Great Registration Race campaign is back for another year, hoping to encourage at least another 100,000 people to register in 2022, and perhaps beat 2021's 108,000.
Dr Adelaide Charlton, an intensive care and organ donation specialist at the John Hunter Hospital, says it's something important to think about.
"I have a lot of discussions with families in very difficult situations, when people are dying of illnesses in intensive care," she said.
"It makes it a lot easier for families if these discussions have been had when people are well, and it takes the burden of some of that decision-making off them and then we know that whatever we're doing is in our patient's best interest."
Just two percent of people who die in hospital can donate their organs - while only 420 Australians were able to donate their organs last year, 1,000 people managed to receive a transplant.
Around 1,850 people are currently on the country's waiting list, as well as another 13,000 on dialysis, who could benefit from a kidney transplant.
"Increasingly, more and more people are eligible," Dr Charlton said. "Even if you have your own health issues, such as heart or lung disease, that's part of a complex workup that we do in the hospital for organ donation."
"There are people with underlying illnesses that can still be organ donors and can change someone's life."
