Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today, I rise to speak about Men’s Health Week and, more particularly, about prostate cancer and a recent forum that I had in my electorate in Adelaide. Men’s Health Week is a very important week in the Australian community. It is a time to bring men’s health to the top of the public agenda and a time to promote community awareness of various men’s health issues. It is also a time for us as parliamentarians to look at ways to improve men’s health and wellbeing and to improve awareness of and funding for issues in men’s health. To help commemorate this week, last Tuesday I hosted a forum at the German club in my electorate of Adelaide to discuss prostate cancer with many people within my community. We had a good attendance of mainly men, but a couple of supportive wives came along as well. It is very important that we discuss this issue because prostate cancer is the most common cancer suffered by Australian men after skin cancer and the second highest cause of male cancer death. It is a significant concern to many men in the community. Sadly, some of them do not know where to turn for information and support.

At the forum last Tuesday, we had the opportunity to hear from Dr Peter Sutherland, a leading urologist based at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, and from Dr Carole Pinnock, a research scientist in the urology unit at the Repatriation General Hospital in Adelaide. We also had the opportunity to hear from the shadow Treasurer, Wayne Swan, who is also a prostate cancer survivor. He gave some inspiring words and also went a long way to remove a lot of the stigma which sadly still exists around this problem. I would also like to thank Jeff Roberts, who came along and spoke about his personal experiences. He also told some of the community members about places in our local area that they can turn to for support. It is very important that we continue to talk about this issue and that we make men feel comfortable in talking about their health.

Sadly, in Australia we are losing too many men to diseases which could be prevented if we raised awareness and encouraged further screening. We also need to raise the awareness of those who are most at risk. As we heard from Wayne Swan, he had no idea about the increased risk that he had of getting prostate cancer as a result of a close relative developing it. There is still much more that needs to be done in the field of research in this area. I would like to use this opportunity to urge this parliament to increase the funding for prostate cancer research and to increase the promotion of regular check-ups in our community. I thank all of those who came to this important event, and particularly those guest speakers.

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