DonateLife Week: How one Canberra girl’s gift changed everything 50 years later
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At the age of 11, Annette Taylor became Canberra’s first organ donor.
And while 50 years have passed since Annette donated her kidneys, her mother Marjorie Taylor still sees her daughter’s gift to two strangers as one of the proudest moments of her life.
Canberra, 1975 – the Bee Gees were blasting on radios, Jaws became the top-grossing film of the year and Annette was an active and happy Year 7 student at St Patrick’s Braddon. But all of that changed when she suddenly came home from school on a Thursday afternoon.
Marjorie remembers the day vividly.
“She said she didn’t feel well. By the time I got home from work, I could see that she wasn’t well, and called a doctor,” she says.
“She had a cerebral haemorrhage and a cardiac arrest…eventually she passed away on the Sunday.”
It’s something no parent can – or wants to – imagine. But as Marjorie faced the reality of her little girl passing away and all the heartbreak that would come with it, one thing stuck in her mind: Annette’s wish to donate her kidneys.
“She was a very intelligent little girl, very inquisitive…Annette came to me one afternoon while we were preparing our dinner and wanted to have the conversation with me and tell me she has been speaking to a friend and colleague of mine about organ donation,” explains Marjorie.
“She said that if anything happened to her, she would like her kidneys transplanted.”
Marjorie Taylor.
On the night Annette was rushed to hospital, Marjorie recalls when the doctors came to see her at midnight to deliver the heartbreaking news – that her daughter wasn’t going to pull through. She says that it was at that moment she flashed back to the conversation with Annette, and she made it instantly clear: she wanted her daughter’s organs donated.
The only problem was organ donation was not legislated in the ACT in 1975.
“I’m sitting there as a mum holding her hand…and they’re saying, ‘We can’t do it’. And then we debated backwards, and forwards and I had to be very persuasive that I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.”
Determined that her daughter was not going to die without her kidneys being donated, Marjorie says it was a fortuitous moment when a urologist who had previously treated her husband arrived with colleagues and saw what was happening.
Supporting her wishes and saying to the doctors, “Marjorie does mean it, let’s see what we can do”, from there it was a rush to check blood and tissue types to see if anyone was a match for Annette.
Annette Taylor.
As the hours ticked by and everyone waited with bated breath to see if Annette would last long enough to see her final wish come true, thankfully, two suitable recipients were found interstate.
The next morning, Professor Shields from the University of Sydney was on the first plane into Canberra to retrieve Annette’s kidneys and returned on the next plane carrying the precious cargo.
“They said that Annette could not have lasted another couple of hours, so it was a miracle that her kidneys were taken,” says Marjorie.
“When it’s told to you that a loved one – a child – isn’t going to make it, it’s a huge shock. It’s the worst shock that you can experience…you just go numb and there was something that clicked within my brain to go into autopilot and say that ‘This has got to be done’.”
It’s been 50 years since Annette’s gifts have helped to save the lives of two strangers. And as Marjorie reflects, her grief for her little girl is still there. But it’s the pride she feels for her daughter that helps her on the days it feels too hard.
“We’re very proud of what she’s done. To help a man in his 40s who had a family and had been on dialysis for three or four years…And then I think about the 14-year-old boy that received the other kidney. He was in school, not much older than Annette.”
“When all of this sinks in, you’re just so proud and glad that you’ve done it.”
And while the conversation around organ donation has changed significantly in the last 50 years, families are still more likely to say no to donation if they are unsure of their loved ones wishes. With only 28 per cent of eligible Canberrans registered on the Australian Organ Donor Register (well below the national average), Marjorie says she wants to continue Annette’s legacy by helping people know the power of becoming a donor.
“The message I’d really like to get out to people, is to sign up to be a donor but also talk to your family about it. Talk to your friends about it…it’s a wonderful gift. It’s something we all need to do to be responsible as a human being.”
This DonateLife Week (Sunday 27 July to Sunday 3 August), register as an organ and tissue donor to be the reason someone else gets a second chance at life.
For more information on organ donation or to register, visit donatelife.gov.au
