David Morgan found out walking can offer more than a breath of fresh air

Born premature, at 26 weeks, his underdeveloped lungs were riddled with bronchopulmonary dysplasia and allergic asthma.

"I had my first respiratory arrest when I was 10 years old," said the 48-year-old who has been admitted to hospital more than 140 times since.

"When you stop breathing it's terrifying. It feels like someone is strangling you," the Penrith local said.

In 2012 Mr Morgan's doctor broke the devastating news that he would need a lung transplant.

But weighing in at 90 kilograms Mr Morgan had to lose weight to be eligible to receive a new set of lungs.

"I thought, 'I can sit in the corner and do nothing or I could get up and do something about it'," he said.

But with such restricted lung capacity Mr Morgan had to be careful not to exert himself.

Just for safety I would walk along a bus route so if I got into strife I could sit down and wait for the bus to come past," Mr Morgan said.

Then I got to the point where I would jog between one telegraph pole to the next, then walk to the next telegraph pole and so on. Now I'm clocking up about 10 kilometres a day," he said.

By April 2015 Mr Morgan had dropped 20 kilograms.

Finally fit enough for a transplant, Mr Morgan was told he no longer needed new lungs.

"I couldn't believe it. My doctor couldn't believe it. I was just over the moon," he said.

The Lung Foundation is calling on the federal government to fund pulmonary rehabilitation centres to improve access to programs in the community and keep patients such as Mr Morgan out of hospitals.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is the second leading cause of avoidable hospital admissions in Australia, with 60,000 hospital admissions in 2012-2013 at huge cost to the health system.

A review at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney found up to 15,000 admissions could have been avoided if every patients who had been admitted to hospital had undergone pulmonary rehabilitation in the community.

The cost to deliver an eight-week cycle of pulmonary rehabilitation, with specialised physiotherapists could have saved the health system $40 million, Lung Foundation CEO Heather Allan said.

"We know people can be safely rehabilitated in the community, but there is currently no funding model that allows these programs to develop," Mrs Allan said.

Australia's 260 pulmonary rehabilitation centres cannot support the 750,000 pulmonary lung disease patients nationally, with few services outside major cities, she said.

In its submission to the Medical Services Advisory Committee, The Lung Foundation is pushing for the federal government to create new Medicare item numbers to subsidise pulmonary rehabilitation programs.

"This is a perfect example of something that make sense economically and makes a huge difference to our patients' quality of life," Mrs Allan said.

Improving access to pulmonary rehabilitation programs would mean cases such as Mr Morgan's would no longer be the exception, Mrs Allan said.

"People who haven't been able to walk to their letter box can all of a sudden do their own shopping. People can go back to work, become more involved in community and get reconnect with their life," she said.

Public submissions to the MBS close on November 13.

Lung disease stats

• 750,000 Australians have pulmonary lung disease
• COPD is the second leading cause of avoidable hospital admissions.
• $5500: cost of an average hospital admission for a COPD patient
• $450: cost of an eight week pulmonary rehabilitation program
• $40 million: potential saving to the national health system by funding pulmonary rehabilitation via medicare

Source: The Lung Foundation