Leonie McKeon saw donating her organs as ‘the ultimate gift ... just another type of generosity’ her partner says

When an Adelaide author’s death was able to save other people’s lives, her partner took it on herself to encourage other people to have the difficult, but important, conversation.

It made perfect sense to Adelaide author and negotiation consultant Leonie McKeon that others should benefit from her organs, if she no longer could.

So, when she passed away suddenly last year after suffering a brain haemorrhage, there was no question her organs wouldn’t be used to help others.

“She was both a very generous as well as practical woman … she couldn’t see why you wouldn’t (tick the box),” her partner of almost three decades, psychologist Shelley Rogers, said.

“In fact, I think she saw donating organs as the ultimate gift … just another type of generosity; she was unbelievably social and always making gifts for people and doing things for people.

“She found people and would round up friends, that is what she did her whole life.”

The women, both in their early 60s, had spoken briefly about organ donation several years earlier, but never could have anticipated the fit and healthy woman’s shock death.

Shelley Rogers lost tragically her partner of almost 30 years, Leonie McKean, on a routine day at work. Her organs were helped at least nine others. Photo: Naomi Jellicoe

“We shared an office and had actually just finished phoning a friend and wishing her happy birthday when Leonie came out and said ‘the back of my head and back of my neck feels funny’,” Ms Rogers recalled.

While Ms Rogers proceeded to see a client, an administration worker took Ms McKeon to see a doctor, as a precautionary measure.

She would learn after that consultation, the heartbreaking news Ms McKeon, who she had married in 2018, had suffered a “catastrophic bleed in her cerebellum” and would not recover.

That was 11am and 49 hours later, specialists across the nation were on standby, waiting for Ms McKeon’s organs, which would be used to help at least nine patients.

“She would have loved that in … in the sense, ‘if I can’t be around, well, someone else can be’, kind of like, ‘I’ve got tickets to a show I can’t go, but I’ll share them’,” Ms Rogers said.

“She also loved getting on a plane … so would have loved that planes were being commandeered and specialists around Australia were preparing to be able to use and work with her organs.”

Ms Rogers says she believes it is important people both consider organ donation and share their intentions with loved ones.

“Because we have an opt-in, instead of an opt-out system, it means that we have to talk about it,” she says.

“I think we need to talk about it because it’s such a generous thing that someone can do … it is kind of like ‘a social generosity’ … I have something that I can give you now, I no longer need them.”

Originally published as Leonie McKeon saw donating her organs as ‘the ultimate gift ... just another type of generosity’ her partner says