Footy stars help shine light on blood cancer fight to increase donors
RUGBY League stars of the Canberra Raiders made a guest appearance at Federal Parliament on Tuesday to help grow Australia’s Bone Marrow Donor Registry (ABMDR) which assists patients living with blood cancer by providing matches for transfusions.
The Parliamentary group on Bone Marrow Donation held a donor drive on World Blood Cancer Day – May 28 – in the Speaker’s Courtyard with the advocacy event featuring the Raiders’ Jamal Fogarty and Zac Hosking.
In mid-2022, Kennedy MP Bob Katter’s nephew Liam O’Brien, now 41, was diagnosed with leukemia and required a donor from the bone marrow pool for treatment. Mr O’Brien’s diagnosis sadly brought to light the very shallow depth of registered donors with the registry including just over 100,000 names at the time, and now about 200,000.
According to the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry there are over 135,000 Australians living with blood cancer and due to the registry’s low numbers, about 80 per cent of patients rely on overseas donors.
Following Mr O’Brien’s diagnosis, Mr Katter began working with the ABMDR and campaigning to see federal funding be allocated to the organisation so it could host recruitment drives. Mr Katter also hosted some of his own recruitment drives which included visits to universities and events at local shows in Far North Queensland.
Subsequently, the Parliamentary Group on Bone Marrow Donation was created to increase advocacy and now includes the following Members as well as Mr Katter: Kate Thwaites, Bert Van Manen, Mike Freelander and Monique Ryan. The group has already achieved the allocation of $1m each towards the ABMDR and the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood for recruitment campaigns.
Mr Katter said he was appreciative of his parliamentary colleagues for banding together and hosting the recruitment drive on Tuesday, while advocating for increased funding.
He said the ultimate goal was to increase the donor list to 1 million registered donors, by increasing funding to organisations such as ABMDR and Lifeblood to boost recruitment drives, lower the minimum donor age from 18 to 16 and establish a government role to continuously recruit new donors.
“We thank everyone for supporting the event – Malanda’s Anj Mittelstadt from Missy’s Donors, ABMDR, Liam’s Life Saving List The Leukaemia Foundation and of course the sporting representation from Rugby Australia, the ACT Brumbies and the Canberra Raiders,” Mr Katter said.
“It takes less than a minute to complete cheek swab to become a registered donor, and we could be saving thousands of more lives each year.
“We now want these groups taking cheek swabs out to all the football clubs across the country, university colleges, police and military precincts to sign up as many young people as possible.”
Attendees were provided information packs which could be taken back to their representative communities and included details on prospective donors can join the registry.
For more information on registering visit www.abmdr.org.au or lifeblood.com.au.
