The Member for Macarthur, Dr Mike Freelander MP, is pleased to announce that the Albanese Government, with state and territory Health Ministers, is increasing the number and diversity of bone marrow donors on the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry (ABMDR).

At the recent Health Ministers meeting, all governments agreed to help boost the supply of local bone marrow donations by releasing up to $4.2 million from the Cord Blood Export Revenue (CBER) fund.

Every 27 minutes in Australia, someone will be diagnosed with a blood cancer such as leukemia, myeloma, or lymphoma and many will need a bone marrow transplant.

Australia’s pool for bone marrow donors is small which makes us heavily reliant on overseas supply.

This funding will save lives by increasing local bone marrow donor recruitment through more blood testing and cheek swabbing and create a more diverse pool of donors.

Specifically, the increased funding includes:

• $1 million to ABMDR for cheek swabbing,
• $1 million to Lifeblood for blood testing, and
• $2.2 million for systems reform work looking at better implementation of Australia’s National Haemopoietic Progenitor Cell (HPC) framework and better targeting recruitment.

All activities will help ensure continued and improved access to bone marrow transplants for Australian patients. 

Dr Freelander welcomes this news, as he has long advocated for greater funding and supports for bone marrow donation whilst in Parliament and as a medical professional.

“In 1981, I was involved in the first surviving bone marrow transplant operation at Campberdown Children’s Hospital, with the patient being a little boy from Campbelltown who now lives a wonderful life in Macarthur. I want his story to be replicated by thousands more Australians needing a bone marrow transplant, which this announcement by the Minister for Health helps achieves.”

“Cheek swabs are a very effective and economical way of bringing additional donors to the registry and I thank the Minister for Health, the Hon. Mark Buter MP, and my committee co-chairs, Bob Katter MP, Dr Monique Ryan MP, Mr Bert van Manen MP & Ms Kate Thwaits MP for their collective efforts on this important matter.”

This funding builds on the Health Minister’s release of $1 million from the CBER fund in February 2023 to increase bone marrow donor recruitment.