Grace Southwell and Cassandra Adams both began a challenging new role in January.
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As donation specialist nurses, the two help to guide families into a decision about organ and tissue donation following the death of a loved one.
Ms Southwell said both her and Ms Adams both came into the role after working as intensive care unit nurses.
“There’s a few different parts of our role, but the main part is coordinating the donation process from getting a referral through the actual case, and then following up with donor families afterwards,” she said.
It was a big role, Ms Adams said.
“With what our work is, we’re dealing with families who are possibly having the saddest and hardest time of their lives,” she said.
“It’s been a really big learning curve, to be honest.
“I had done a little bit of training to do with organ donation in New South Wales, and then I moved back to Tassie for this job.
“We bring our experience of caring for patients and families in the ICU into this role.”
Ms Southwell agreed it had been a steep learning curve.
“You do deal with families after the hardest day of their life,” she said.
“But at the other end of the spectrum, we’re helping with the best day of someone else’s life.
“We know that donor families get a lot of comfort from donation, so it’s rewarding as well.”
Ms Southwell said they work statewide in Tasmania’s major hospitals.
“It’s a big team-based environment. We all travel and support each other in the role,” she said.
“Our typical day would depend if we’ve got an active case.
“That’s a very different day to when we’re doing the other parts of our clinical role, like nursing education, community awareness, and things like that.
“When there’s an active case on, all of that tends to stop and our sole focus is on the case and the donor and the donor family.
“From when we get a referral that there’s a case on, we know that the next few days would be very different to our normal days.”
Ms Southwell said the role was challenging.
“The part of my role that I’ve found very challenging, but is the most rewarding part, is being able to have those really intimate and sensitive conversations with a donor family, at the most vulnerable time in their lives,” she said.
“And then, being able to support them through the process.
“Part of our role involves supporting them days, weeks, years down the track.
“It’s rewarding when you hear recipient stories and outcomes, especially knowing how much it means to the donor families to hear that news that they were able to help someone else.”
You do deal with families after the hardest day of their life. But, at the other end of the spectrum, we’re helping with the best day of someone else’s life.
- Donation specialist nurse Grace Southwell
Ms Adams said supporting the decisions of families was very important.
“While we are in the role and we are there to help facilitate donation, it’s also about supporting the families so that they make a decision where in two-months time, six-months time, 12-months time, they still feel like they’ve made the right decision,” she said.
“One of our key messages this week for DonateLife Week is that we want people to actually have a conversation about whether they want to become an organ donor.
“Because at the time that we approach families, it is one of the worst days of their lives.
“If families have spoken about organ donation, it makes those conversations a little bit easier having to make such a significant decision.
“I suppose one of our key messages is for people to get some information, find out organ and tissue donation and decide if that’s something they want to support, and then tell their families about their decision and then register it.
“Organ donation is a rare event. Only a small number of people that die are able to be an organ donor so donation is important for that reason.”
Ms Adams said at any given time, about 14,000 Australians are on the waiting list for a transplant.
“The very sad part of that is that people do die while on the waiting list,” she said.
“So what we would like to do is offer families, and patients, the chance to be an organ donor at the end of their life, if that’s something that they think that they would like to do.”
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According to DonateLife, statistics show that registering to become a donor directly influences consent rates. About 90 per cent of families agree to organ and tissue donation proceeding when aware their loved one is registered.
However, this drops to 40 per cent when families are unaware of their loved one’s donation decision.
“We’re finding that Tasmanians are quite educated, and they are actually asking about donation rather than us just approaching families at that time,” Ms Adams said.
“People are now asking whether or not organ donation could be a possibility for their family member.
“It must be very hard to know that your loved one is going to die, and then to be so generous to think of someone else.
“And, not just one other person – organ donation can help up to 10 people.
“It’s a pretty amazing, generous gift that they can offer.”
DonateLife executive officer Davin Hibberd said becoming an organ and tissue donor was something that could one day save lives, and urged Australians to register as part of DonateLife Week.
“During DonateLife Week we urge all Australians to donate strength, donate hope, donate love, DonateLife by registering to become an organ and tissue donor at donatelife.org.au,” he said.
“Just 33 per cent of Australians aged 16 and over have joined the Australian Organ Donor Register, even though 49 per cent of Australians are aware of the register and 69 per cent believe that registration is the best way to ensure your donation decision is known.”
Mr Hibberd said almost half of Tasmanians aged 16 and over were registered, which is the second highest rate in Australia and well above the national average.
There are many ways to join the Australian Organ Donor Register; visit donatelife.gov.au, the Department of Human Services website, myGov, the Express Plus Medicare app, or by posting a printed form.
DonateLife Week runs from July 29 to August 5.
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