Organ donor myths busted by Penrith High School drama students

BY CARYN METCALFE | Penrth Press

PENRITH High School drama students have tackled the tough topic of organ donation in a play for the Western Sydney Regional Drama Festival.

Working with the Groundswell Project, the year 11 students spent two months talking to people who had been affected in some way by organ donation.

Gabrielle Davy, 16, said the students wanted to empower people to talk about organ donation. “We wanted to raise awareness and hopefully more people will be interested in organ donation and register,” she said.

Nicholas Phillpott, 16, said researching organ donation had uncovered a lot of myths.

“There’s a misconception that if you’re an organ donor that people will leave you if you’re sick or in an accident,” he said.

“They think the doctors won’t try as hard to help you.”

The students also discovered that organs could only be donated through brain death and cardiac arrest, and needed to be agreed to by family.

“Because the question of whether the family members will allow their loved one to have their organs donated comes so quickly after the death, it is important that the answer be more instinctual from talking before, so the grief doesn’t affect their decision,” Gabrielle said.

The play features comedic mythbusting with serious undertones.

The students performed the play at their school last week and will perform it again at the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre on August 11 in the hope to make it through to the state level of the competition.