General News
20 March, 2026
Life-saving organ donor registrations urged
Community members touched by organ donation are encouraging everyone to make a life-saving decision and register as a donor.
Maryborough’s Darren Rayner was on his death bed when his doctor told him he was going to get a life-saving liver transplant.
Mr Rayner’s health had been declining for years due to non-alcoholic cirrhosis, meaning scarring on his liver, caused by Crohn’s disease.
It wasn’t until his health rapidly declined over a few weeks that a liver transplant became life or death.
Before that he’d put on a brave face for his three kids, particularly his teenage daughter, when he’d rest during the day so she’d have a “normal life” after school.
“When she wasn’t around you were hurting. You were that buggered I could fall asleep in seconds,” he said.
This time though, with just days to live, his kids saw through him.
“That was probably the hardest afternoon in my life to be honest,” he said.
Due to the process’ confidentiality it’s impossible to know whose death and generous donation saved Mr Rayner’s life.
What he can be certain of, however, is that thousands of people are waiting for the same life-saving chance.
Mr Rayner said he hopes the community will consider helping by registering for organ donation.
“It’s the greatest sacrifice they will ever make,” he said.
DonateLife Victoria’s deputy state medical director Dr Sam Radford said people can become the reason someone else gets a second chance at life.
“It doesn’t matter how old you are, your medical history, your lifestyle, what country you’re from or how healthy you are — you can still register as an organ and tissue donor,” he said.
Anyone aged 16 and over can register on the Australian Organ Donor Register.
This means when you die, if you’re in a hospital and your organs are working well, with your families support they can be donated.
Last year around 2,000 Australians were waiting for an organ transplant with an additional 14,000 people on dialysis for kidney failure, many a kidney transplant could help.
Among them is Maryborough local Sophie Tribe.
On top of working and being a mum of two, Mrs Tribe spends four and a half hours three days a week on dialysis at home.
“My life revolves around dialysis,” she said.
Mrs Tribe is in end stage kidney disease requiring dialysis until she can get a kidney transplant.
That means a machine acts as her kidneys by taking all the blood out of her body, cleaning it, and then putting it back.
This process is exhausting for patients, not only making them feel sick but becomes a “big hole” in their lives due to how long and often it’s needed.
“I’ve been doing that for about 18 months now and just waiting for a kidney,” she said.
For Mrs Tribe this means having her phone “on loud” all hours of every day, answering every call, because one could have life-saving news.
“I have to answer every phone call because it might be a scammer but it might be a kidney. It’s the waiting game,” she said.
Mrs Tribe said it’s been tough on her family to see her so unwell.
“It’s hard to see people that you love sick knowing that the worst case scenario is that there isn’t a kidney in time and you lose that loved one,” she said.
Dr Radford said around 50 people die each year while on the organ transplant waitlist.
Mrs Tribe’s dad, David Hendrickson, just hopes his daughter isn’t one day amongst them.
“Us as parents we’re watching our kid die hoping for someone else to die to save our daughter,” he said.
“You’re wishing heartache on someone to save another.”
They’re complicated emotions that Mrs Tribe shares: joy to possibly get a transplant but sadness that someone else had died.
“Long term that gives me more time with the kids, it’s less time hooked up to a machine, and essentially it gives me my life back,” she said.
“It’ll just give us, give me, my life back.”
Mrs Tribe has been a registered organ donor since she was 18 years old and encourages the community to do the same.
“As someone who is on both sides of the stick I would hope someone would be willing to donate,” she said.
“There’s so many different organs in the body that can help multiple people and that can be anybody of all ages.”
Dr Radford said one organ donor can save the lives of up to seven people and help many more through eye and tissue donation.
“For someone who is seriously ill, an organ or tissue transplant can mean the difference between life and death, being healthy or sick, seeing or being blind, or being active or never walking again,” he said.
“Transplantation enables people to resume an active role in their family, workplace, and community.”
Mrs Tribe hopes she’ll begin to get her life back, according to her doctor’s estimates, this year.
“They’re hoping sometime this year there will be a kidney with my name on it,” she said.
Shivone Broeckelmann isn’t so lucky, other health complications mean she isn’t eligible for a kidney transplant, dialysis is for life.
She hopes the community understands how difficult it is to live in organ failure and considers helping others by registering.
“Putting your morbidity at the forefront really makes you think about what’s important and for me it’s family,” she said.
“That family that is donating, or that person that is donating, is giving that love on and is passing that family on. That’s how important it is.”
Mrs Broeckelmann is both a mum to three teenagers and an accomplished athlete.
Although her left leg was amputated as a child due to meningococcal sepsis it didn’t seem to slow her down.
Growing up in Maryborough she was a member of the Australian swim team between 13 and 18 years old.
Later she played full-time wheel-chair basketball for the Bendigo Braves, her “one true passion”.
But in 2022, following a heart attack, she discovered that her kidneys were at 16 percent function.
In 2024, they had dropped to around nine percent function and she ended up in a coma for 11 days.
“That’s what started my dialysis journey,” she said, but it also changed her life.
Mrs Broeckelmann goes to Bendigo Health for her dialysis, a seven hour process, multiple times a week.
She doesn’t have the energy for full-time work or sport anymore and dialysis takes her away from her family.
“I miss out on probably my most favourite part of the day, sitting down with my kids and my wife filling each other in on the day. I really hate that I’m not there for those times,” she said.
Between last Christmas and February, Mrs Broeckelmann said she “lost” three friends she made during dialysis.
Because of patient confidentiality she doesn’t always know what happened to them. Maybe they got a transplant, or moved or died.
“You sort of just don’t know what to do with that grief because you think that’s going to be me one day or another,” she said.
“I can extend my time here on Earth but it does make you — it comes to the forefront of your mind. It makes you think about your own death.”
Although Mrs Broeckelmann isn’t eligible for a kidney transplant she sometimes thinks about what that would mean for her.
“The words thank you wouldn’t even start to describe how truly huge that would be for me,” she said.
“I could live to see grandchildren, I could live until I’m 70, I could grow old with my wife, I could still achieve the goals that we had prior to my life going on pause.”
Dr Radford said he wants all Australians to register for organ and tissue donation.
“The most important thing people can do right now is to register as an organ and tissue donor at donatelife.gov.au or via your MyGov account. It only takes one minute to register. Then, tell your family you want to be a donor,” he said.