A bench in the National Botanic Garden is dedicated to Annette Taylor, the first ACT organ donor. Photo: Donate Life.
Picture this, you are the parent of an 11-year-old girl who only days previously was her usual bright and energetic self; but now you are in hospital hearing the words no parent ever wants to hear. How do you react?
For one courageous Canberra mother, that terrible news was the trigger to make history and instigate the first organ donation in the ACT.
Just a few weeks previously, in what seemed an innocent request from a caring schoolgirl to be an organ donor if anything ever happened to her, turned into a time-critical mission for a mother determined to fulfil her daughter’s wishes.
Marjorie Taylor faced a mountain of bureaucratic and logistical obstacles. But through her steadfast refusal to take no for an answer, she managed to honour her daughter Annette’s wish.
Annette died in Canberra Hospital in 1975 but with the pioneering help of many, her kidneys were donated to two recipients.
Fifty years is a long time. But the same love and courage that drove her forward all those years ago, still shines in Marjorie today as she bravely talks about her daughter.
“She was a very intelligent little girl, very inquisitive. She would make in-depth inquiries of things she was interested in,” Marjorie said.
“One afternoon at home, she told me she had been speaking to a friend of mine about organ donation. His friend had just come back from having a kidney transplant in Sydney.
“A few weeks later, she read a small clip about it in the newspaper and she brought up the topic again. She said to me if anything should happened to her, she would like her kidneys transplanted.”
No-one knew that time was to come only a few weeks later, just before her 12th birthday.
“She came home from school on the Thursday afternoon and said she didn’t feel well,” Marjorie said.
“We could see she was unwell and called a doctor straight away.”
Annette had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and later went into cardiac arrest.
“She suddenly went from being a very active child, active with everything she did – it was a shock that she should be sick.
“I’ll never forget the bells ringing and rushing around the entrance to the hospital.
“Around midnight that night, I had some doctors come to see me. And they said she wasn’t going to pull through.
“I was sitting there as a mum, holding her hand, thinking this is just not right.
“When you’re told your loved one, a child, isn’t going to make it, it’s a huge, huge shock. You just go numb.
“But there was something that clicked in my brain, I went into autopilot. I went back to the conversation and I said I would like her organs taken, the opportunity is here.”
There was one big problem. Organ donation was not legislated in the ACT in 1975.
As Annette was on life support, she could not be transferred to Sydney.
“It was not something the hospital in Canberra had confronted before. They were also confronted with my determination to make Annette’s wish be realised,” Marjorie said.
“They came and told me it couldn’t be done. But I was not giving in, my daughter was not going to die without her kidneys being donated.
“We debated backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards. I had to really be very persuasive. I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.”
Fortuitously, a urologist who had previously treated Marjorie’s husband, arrived with colleagues.
“He saw me and that it was Annette lying in the bed. He just couldn’t believe it. And he said to his colleagues, Marjorie does mean it, let’s see what we can do.”
The team still had to work on tissue and blood type to see if there were two matches. No-one knew how long Annette would last.
Late on the Saturday night, they found two suitable recipients in Sydney.
Professor Shields from the University of Sydney arrived the next morning on the first plane into Canberra to retrieve Annette’s kidneys and returned on the next plane carrying Annette’s precious gifts.
“They said she could not have lasted another couple of hours. So it was just a miracle the kidneys were taken.”
Has 50 years changed Marjorie’s grief?
“Yes and no. You grieve every day and even after 50 years I still do. But over time we developed a sense of pride that by Annette being a organ donor, she helped two individuals to have a better life and hopefully her story will help others to make the decision to become organ donors,” Marjorie said.
“I was very proud she helped 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 had the other kidney. He was in school, not much older than Annette.
“When all of this sinks in, you’re just so proud and you’re just so glad you’ve done it.”
Marjorie said organ donation was as important now as it was in 1975. Less than one-third of eligible Canberrans are on the Australian Organ Donor Register.
“The message I’d really like to get out to people is sign up to be a donor but also, make sure you have the conversation – tell your family your wishes,” she said.
“Let your family know you want to be an organ donor if or when the decision ever needs to be made.
“It’s a wonderful gift. It’s something we all need to do to be responsible as a human being.”
Annette Taylor and other organ and tissue donors, and their families were acknowledged at the ACT Donate Life Service of Remembrance and Thanksgiving on Saturday 15 February 2025.
For information or to register to be an organ donor visit Donate Life.
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