Damien is delivering the petition to the Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath. Damien’s story is quite incredible, he has been dubbed “the bionic man”! Damien is in the smaller percentage of people who find a stem cell match within the family. Only 30% of patients find their match with a family member and the other 70% rely on finding their match with someone who has registered to be a potential stem cell donor on the Australian or world-wide donor registries. In 2011 Damien had his stem cell transplant using his brother’s donated stem cells. He developed Graft vs Host Disease which basically means the donor cells detect Damien’s body as foreign and start attacking his organs, and subsequently Damien had to go on to have a double lung transplant and double hip replacement. He has since founded the Chimera Legacy Foundation which does amazing work and he continues to work on his own health and fitness with his eyes set on competing in the Transplant Games. You can read more about his amazing story here.

Diana is delivering the petition to the Western Australian Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson. Diana’s son struggled to find a stem cell match due to his culturally diverse background. Patients with diverse cultural and indigenous backgrounds often struggle to find a match as these groups are under-represented on the donor registries (ie – Italian, Asian, Middle Eastern etc). Her family started “Jordan’s Fight Club”, a campaign to educate the public about the bone marrow registry. This is a huge burden for a family going through such an ordeal, it should be the responsibility of the ABMDR and Strength to Give to proactively promote the service, however they’ve been unable to do so due to funding constraints.

Their search luckily came at a time when the Strength to Give pilot program was being run which meant they were able to run over 11 successful donor drives using cheek swabs and recruit over 1000 people from these under-represented groups onto the donor registry! Being able to easily target people from the right demographic groups is one of the many benefits of having cheek swabs.

Unfortunately, Jordan never found his match and had no choice but to undergo a riskier “half matched” transplant using his sisters stem cells. Thankfully Jordan was very lucky to make it through the transplant and is currently in remission and slowly regaining back his health.

Javeria is delivering the petition to the New South Wales Health Minister Brad Hazzard. Javeria’s 2 sons were both born with immunodeficiencies and needed a stem cell transplant. Stem cell transplants can cure not only blood cancer but a range of different blood disorders and immunodeficiencies. Due to their Pakistani background it was very difficult to find a match. Sadly after a long search and no match, one of her sons passed away at only 15 months old. Javeria wasted no time with her second son, rather than searching for a match he underwent a riskier “half matched” transplant using his fathers donated stem cells. It has been a long road to recovery for the family, having to live in isolation for years. Javeria has done a lot of advocacy work for the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry and the Immune Deficiencies Foundation Australia.

You can read more about Javeria’s story here

Sophie is delivering the petition to the South Australian Health Minister Chris Picton and the Federal Health Minister Mark Butler. Sophie was diagnosed with Leukaemia when she was 29 years old. She was able to find a match on the donor registry and underwent a transplant which saved her life. She has been a big advocate for the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry and the Strength to Give cheek swab program. She is the brilliant person who started the change.org petition which has reached over 5,000 signatures, so it’s very fitting that Sophie is the one to deliver the petition to the Federal Health Minister! You can read more about Sophie here

Biff is the champion that underwent #The2050 challenge to help raise awareness on the need for cheek swab testing in Australia. He ran 50km a day for 20 days to represent the 50 Australians diagnosed with blood cancer every day and the 20,000 people we need to join the stem cell donor registry every year. Matt’s Mum was able to find a match and have a stem cell transplant. He was inspired to join the donor registry himself but was surprised at how difficult it was. He also learnt that his Mum had a higher chance of finding a match because of her Anglo-Saxon background and thought that there had to be a better way to increase the numbers and diversity of people joining the Australian donor registry. He has been a huge advocate in raising awareness on this important issue.