Increasing Australia's organ donation rate is more complicated than just encouraging people to talk about the issue with their families and become registered donors.
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Canberra Hospital donation specialist nurse coordinator Erin Brown travelled to Spain last year, which is considered the world leader in organ and tissue donation.
![Donation specialist nurse coordinator Erin Brown recently visited Spain to find out why their organ donation is so much better than ours. Photo: Colleen Petch Donation specialist nurse coordinator Erin Brown recently visited Spain to find out why their organ donation is so much better than ours. Photo: Colleen Petch](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/a014a9e0-7805-4c5e-918c-94d4b1cba77f.jpg/r0_0_729_410_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Ms Brown completed an advanced international training course in transplantation coordination run by the Transplant Procurement Management and the University of Barcelona at Sant Hilari Sacalm.
In 2011, Spain had an organ donor rate of 35 per one million people.
![Donation specialist nurse coordinator Erin Brown. Photo: Colleen Petch Donation specialist nurse coordinator Erin Brown. Photo: Colleen Petch](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/0388477e-e2ae-4b68-a758-1d2b210375ea.jpg/r0_0_729_410_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Between 2009 and 2012 Australia's donor rate climbed from 11 to 15 per one million people.
Ms Brown said Australia had over the past three years adopted many of the initiatives already used in Spain to promote and coordinate donations but it would take several years for the donation rate to catch up.
“It reinforced to me that we're on the right track. We have implemented the same things that they've implemented, we're just a lot earlier on in their process than we are," Ms Brown said.
One of the lessons from the Spanish system was the importance of organ donation teams having strong relationships with other hospital staff.
“They talked about how important it is to be visual in the hospital and we're still working on that - really getting involved in intensive care and emergency. We're involved in those places, we just need to be more visual and more involved," Ms Brown said.
Ms Brown's job involves speaking with and supporting the families of emergency department or intensive care patients who doctors have determined will not be able to survive.
Ms Brown did not believe that the adoption of an “opt-out" organ donation system would make a significant difference to overall donation rates.
“Personally I don't think it would make much of a difference because we offer organ donation to everyone, unless they've said no," she said.
Labor MLA Mary Porter on Monday presented to the ACT Library Service a Book of Life which includes Canberra organ donation stories.
“Most people think their contribution to society is only when they are alive but in fact their contribution can carry on for many years in that perhaps somebody will have a heart, or their cornea, or skin or whatever," she said.
DonateLife Week runs until Sunday. Information on organ and tissue donation is available on the website.