29/08/2026
A great article about my Dad and others competing in the Transplant Games coming up and the need for more organ donors...
Kidney transplant recipient Brian Donovan helped establish the inaugural Australian Transplant Games in Melbourne in 1988 (the first World Transplant Games were held in England a decade earlier).
The 78-year-old was born with a rare birth defect that meant doctors thought he would not survive childhood.
He spent eight years of his 20s on dialysis – a mentally and physically gruelling process that left him with severe bone disease – all while working full-time and raising a young family.
Donovan recalls his determination to maintain his independence while working in Kmart’s advertising department.
“After work I’d count the electricity poles. I had nine of them to go to the bus stop, and I’d lean up against the first one and my aim was to get to the next one. And that’s how I got on the bus,” he says.
Finally, in 1982, his younger brother Ray, who died last year, was approved to donate a kidney.
“As soon as I had my transplant I was jumping up and down in bed,” says Donovan.
“I couldn’t walk anywhere – I had to run. Even going back to work, I never used the lift. I used to run up the stairs; I had so much energy again.”
Pauline, Donovan’s wife of 55 years, says the transplant “was like having a new life”.
“Before, everything revolved around the kidney machine. And after, we weren’t stuck to it any more. We could take our daughters places and do all sorts of things,” she says.
In the almost five decades since his transplant, Donovan has competed around the world in tennis and table tennis, picking up bronze, silver and gold medals in the Australian and international games.
But the real glory, he says, should go to his wife.
“Pauline should win a medal for looking after me. Sometimes I find it very difficult to explain how much she did for me,” says Donovan, who cites walking his daughters down the aisle and watching them become parents themselves among his proudest moments.
In his later years, Donovan has traded tennis for bowls, and will compete alongside a 10-year-old kidney transplant recipient next month. Age has yet to subdue his ferocious spirit.
“Bowls is pretty bloody competitive, there’s a will to win even in social competitions,” he says.
The spirit of the games is a testament to the importance of organ donation, and the work still to be done.
In 2025, 1438 Australians received a life-saving transplant from 557 deceased donors – the highest number of donors on record.
Still, the consent rate remains low at 53 per cent, lagging behind its 2018 peak of 60 per cent – despite the fact surveys consistently show the majority of Australians support organ donation.
About 80 per cent of families agree to donation in the hospital if they know their loved one is registered, dropping to about 40 per cent when they don’t know if their family member wanted to be a donor.
Lucinda Barry, chief executive of DonateLife (run by the government’s Organ and Tissue Authority), encourages anyone who supports donation to register and have a conversation with their family about this decision.
Read the whole article here : https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/bloody-competitive-welcome-to-the-olympics-for-the-organ-transplant-world-20260728-p60j9v.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawUATo5wZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR6kdCHowit1WizpPSa3RWWNlfwLhSGnUqH_rIUJw4NdcaVXE8xou4M4iLTECg_aem_cdtaeyXLcfc0aY45oba3vA
