Mark Colvin humbled by 'gracious gift' of life

Updated

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Mark Colvin reveals painful wait for kidney transplant (ABC News)

For the first time, renowned ABC radio presenter Mark Colvin has opened up about the unbearable wait he has been forced to endure to receive a kidney transplant.

Hundreds of people who desperately need transplants simply have to wait in line to receive a donation, surviving in poor health and risking death.

But when it comes time for families with a dying relative to make the choice to donate, many of them say no.

In 2008, Australia invested $150 million to increase organ donation rates, but initial progress has been slow. The numbers are now starting to increase, with the figures so far for 2013 at the highest level ever.

Colvin says he had been steadily deteriorating while battling kidney disease, particularly since being on dialysis.

I'm about to get the gift of a new kidney. @colvinius

"I've spent the last few years trying very hard not to whinge, I've been telling people it's all bearable, but it's not really very bearable. It's rotten," he said.

"And now that I'm through it I can say how very unpleasant it is to be on dialysis.

"It would be good if people understand when we dialysis patients say - yeah I know, just getting on, it's all fine - we don't really mean it."

As Colvin explains, dialysis is "a feeling of being drained, exhausted - as though you're seeing the world through a kind of murky film."

"I was in a queue which stretches right back around the block. I was told that it was an average of four to seven years, but quite quickly I was in a dialysis ward sitting opposite a bloke who had waited nine years to get a kidney," he said.

A difficult decision

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Mark Colvin speaks with ABC News Breakfast (ABC News)

To try to understand the disconnect between Australians' desire to support organ donation in principle, and the statistics, Four Corners reporter Sarah Ferguson decided to show for the first time what the families of donors go through and to capture the conversations families inevitably must have if they are to agree to an organ donation.

I know somebody who got a heart and two lungs, and his Twitter handle is @agraciousgift and that's very good I think. It's the most gracious gift you can have really. Mark Colvin

Ferguson also watched her friend and colleague Colvin as he struggled to survive with five-and-a-half-hour bouts of kidney dialysis three times a week.

During Colvin's transplant operation, Ferguson says she was not prepared for just how anxious she was.

"At one point [the surgeon] told the surgeon operating with him to be particularly careful, and I had to go out of the room. I was, for the only time in my entire professional career, not in there as a journalist. My ability to maintain that side of me was completely abandoned and I was Mark's friend sitting in there," she said.

Ferguson says although there are extraordinary stories of transplants in the media, what is seldom reported is how difficult that decision is to make when you are a family in ICU with a relative dying.

"That's the part of the process where it goes wrong because almost half of all Australians, when confronted with that question, not withstanding a huge support for the idea of donation, they say no," she said.

"So we're losing hundreds of organs every year because people at that crunch time don't feel as though they can say yes."

We're losing hundreds of organs every year because people at that crunch time don't feel as though they can say yes. Sarah Ferguson, Four Corners reporter

Colvin says when he found out he was finally getting a kidney, it was "all a bit of a blur".

"I tweeted at 9:00 that morning, I think, that I was about to get the fantastic gift of a kidney," he said.

"Over the next day or two, it was trending on Twitter, meaning it was one of the most talked-about subjects in the country. Just extraordinary."

Ask Australians if they would be prepared to be organ donors when they die, and the vast majority say yes.

The actual donation figures though tell a very different story. Last year just 354 people actually donated organs.

Colvin is happy to see that his plight has raised awareness about the need for more organ donations.

"I know somebody who got a heart and two lungs, and his Twitter handle is @agraciousgift, and that's very good I think," he said.

"It's the most gracious gift you can have really."

- A Gracious Gift, reported by Sarah Ferguson, goes to air tonight at 8:30pm on ABC1.

Topics: liver-and-kidneys, health, diseases-and-disorders, melbourne-3000, vic, australia

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