So on Tuesday, the royal commission will send representatives to his hospital bed in the northern Victorian town Kerang to hear him testify about the sexual abuse he suffered .

Barry says the pain comes and goes. His brother Peter, who is a year older than Barry, asks him if he wants him to leave the room. Barry says he can stay.

Slowly, Barry begins revealing as many details as he can. When he was about eight or nine, he was abused while in the care of the Christian Brothers at St Augustine's Orphanage in Highton, Geelong.

Barry and Peter were both sexually abused by the same people when they were children. But they chose never to speak about it to each other. They probably never will.

On one occasion, they were abused during a holiday visit to a couple's home, which the orphanage had organised. ''I [later] wrote them a letter from Adelaide and they just sent me back a letter saying they didn't even know me,'' Barry says through his tears.

His life has involved much struggle. He has gone to jail for stealing a car. His marriage failed, and Barry raised his four sons alone, Peter says.

He has always been scared to touch others. He cannot even bring himself to touch other people's clothes.

''[The abuse] destroyed my life … to touch somebody else is really hard for me. My sex life's been a bad thing to me all my life. I don't know where to touch someone, how to touch them,'' Barry says. ''I never know when I'm doing the right thing or the wrong thing.''

The only things he has loved have been spending time with his children and coaching a local cricket team.

He was too scared to report his allegations to the police until last year, when he was angered by the ''brazen'' attitude of Cardinal George Pell in a television appearance.

Barry called the police. When they later called Peter to find out if he had, too, been abused, it was the first time he learnt of Barry's story. It prompted Peter to tell his children and wife about his own abuse.

Last week, Peter was trying to find the money to fund his brother's funeral and cremation. Earlier in the year, he had talked to a lawyer about seeking compensation from the Christian Brothers, but was advised there was probably insufficient time.

Victim support organisation Care Leavers Australia Network's executive officer, Leonie Sheedy, is the reason Barry's story will be heard by the royal commission. She has never met the brothers, but called Peter after a detective told her they needed her help to fund Barry's funeral.

She asked him if Barry wanted to give evidence before he died: He did. The next day, she organised for the royal commission to send representatives to Barry's bedside.

A spokeswoman for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse says it wants all survivors to have the opportunity to share their stories, and in urgent circumstances ''we may fast-track their engagement with the royal commission''. Testimony can also be given via home visits, written statements and phone calls. More than 1400 private sessions have been held, with 70 per cent of people attending them aged 50 or older.

Barry wants other victims to come forward: ''You're not on your own. There are a lot of people out there who need us to go out and stand up … It ain't easy, but it gets easier and that's all you can do.''

Barry hopes the royal commission will make everyone aware of child sexual abuse and able to discuss it. He says he is happy to have his say. ''If they can help me out now while I'm dying, and get me in the ground peacefully and look after my boys, I'll be a happier man.''