Reflecting on the last 12 months, wow what a year 2022 was!
We heavily dedicated our time and resources to fight and advocate for the introduction of cheek swab testing into Australia. We have realised that without the cheek swabs it’s very difficult to achieve our goals to grow and diversify Australia's local donor pool, so we threw everything at it! Check out some of our key achievements from 2022 below and a brief summary on our government meetings. There’s a lot of work and planning that happens in the backgrounds to achieve these things and I want to thank all the volunteers who helped me this past year for your passion and commitment to the cause! Now 2023 let's go!!
2022 key achievements:
Heavy educational messaging online and through social media around our “bring back the cheek swabs” campaign; encouraging hundreds of people to write to our Health Ministers through provided email/letter templates and to get behind the amazing @sophiegrayyoga petition ….which is currently sitting on over 7,000 signatures
We came first in the Grill’d Burgers local matters program and won a $300 donation
Participated in an ABC Radio National interview on the need for cheek swab testing in Australia
@Biffrunner 's incredible support with “The 20-50” event to help us raise awareness….he ran 50km every day for 20 days (50 to represent the 50 Australians diagnosed with blood cancer each day and 20 to represent the 20,000 people needed to join the stem cell donor registry each year). 1000km total which is equivalent from Geelong to Sydney! And he met with a number of his local MP’s along the way
We wrote a blog post published on the Donor Research Network website “Blood cancer patients are dying waiting for their stem cell match”
We wrote official letters to every State Health Minister and the Federal Health Minister
Teamed up with some incredible volunteers around Australia to hand deliver the petition and meeting request letters to the State Health Ministers and Federal Health Minister which sparked a series of meetings
@Biffrunner met with the Assistant Federal Health Minister Ged Kearney in Victoria (she was supportive and reiterated the need to garner State support)
Meeting with the Queensland Assistant Health Minister along with Louise from the Forever Four Foundation (Qld unfortunately were hesitant in offering strong support for the cause)
Worked closely with Queensland MP @mprobbiekatter as he also advocated and supported our campaign to bring back the cheek swabs and to get a better response from the Qld government
Meeting with the Northern Territory with Louise from Forever Four (a successful meeting as they agreed to write a letter to the Federal Health Minister)
Meeting with the NSW Health Minister along with Javeria (another successful meeting where the Health Minster agreed to personally hand deliver letters of support to his State counterparts and a letter to the Federal Health Minister)
Response letters received from the other States but meeting requests not granted
Response letter received from the Federal Health Minister Mark Butler and a meeting initially offered however unfortunately they never followed through
Meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia who strongly supported and agreed to talk with the Federal Health Minister about the cheek swabs and send a letter of support
We presented to the Advisory Group that has been set up by the government who are due to provide their recommendations about donor recruitment this year
We were involved in a Channel 10 news report for World Marrow Donor Day which highlighted the need for cheek swab testing
The amazing @sonnyleaudais and @bennewtown ran 250km along The Great North Walk and raised over $30,000 for UR the Cure
We presented to Year 11 students at a local high school and educated them about stem cell donation
Geelong Advertiser newspaper article about our meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister “Cancer survivor's call for Aussies to get cheeky donor registry"
None of this would’ve happened without your support! All of your input and comments made through the surveys we ran have meant that we could collate the data to present to the government to back up what we are saying. We have had over 800 survey respondents over the years which provided really valuable information. When we advocate for the cheek swabs and participate in government meetings, we are representing the entire patient community/their loved ones and their views which makes it so much more powerful. So thank you everyone for your help.
Hopefully some more exciting things to come in 2023!
Pamela