Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House:

(1)

notes:

(a)

that Australia has the highest reported rate of mesothelioma in the world;

(b)

that there has been a four to five-fold increase in the rate of mesothelioma since the early 1980s and that it is estimated that this rate will continue to increase for the next five to 10 years;

(c)

the chemotherapy agent Alimta is the only treatment registered for use in mesothelioma, and in combination with Cisplatin, represents the ‘gold standard’ for mesothelioma treatment in Australia;

(d)

treatment by Alimta can significantly increase a patient’s survival time as well as improve a patient’s quality of life in its final stages;

(e)

Alimta is listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) for persons who have contracted lung cancer for smoking, but is not approved for patients with mesothelioma;

(f)

access to Alimta for mesothelioma patients is currently inequitable across Australia, with some States and companies providing various schemes to compensate victims of asbestos exposure and some patients having to pay for Alimta privately at great expense; and

(g)

the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recently approved the use of Alimta in the treatment of mesothelioma sufferers and the governments of France, Sweden and Japan subsidise the drug for sufferers in those countries; and

(2)

calls on the Government to take all necessary action to support the inclusion of Alimta on the PBS for the treatment of all mesothelioma sufferers.

It was with great sadness that I visited local hero and anti-asbestos campaigner Bernie Banton a few weeks ago at Concord hospital. Bernie had just been diagnosed with mesothelioma, the most debilitating and aggressive of asbestos related diseases. Bernie Banton is well known as the anti-asbestos campaigner who worked tirelessly to hold the corporate giant James Hardie accountable to thousands of asbestos sufferers nationwide. His epic struggle helped lead to the establishment of a $4 billion compensation fund and brought some financial security to asbestos victims and their families.

Bernie then moved on to fight for the establishment of an asbestos diseases centre at Concord hospital—a centre now established and treating Bernie. At the time he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, Bernie had already been campaigning for some time to have the drug Alimta listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for all mesothelioma victims, even though he himself would have been eligible to be treated with Alimta and will be so treated now. But many Australians who contract the disease will not be eligible, and it was for an end to the lottery for mesothelioma sufferers that Bernie was campaigning—a lottery in which the quality of your treatment is determined by where you live, how you contracted the disease and your capacity to pay.

Mesothelioma is the worst of the asbestos diseases, a fatal and aggressive cancer that attacks the lining of the lungs, heart and abdomen. Mesothelioma is linked with exposure to asbestos fibres and can take 30 to 40 years to develop. There is no proven cure. Australia has the highest asbestos mortality per capita in the world, and for the next 20 years around six Australians are expected to die every day from asbestos related disease. Currently, approximately 600 cases of mesothelioma are recorded annually, and the incidence and mortality rates for the disease for women have doubled in the last 10 years. We can expect another 11,000 cases to appear between now and 2020.

Recent clinical evidence shows that median survival rates for mesothelioma patients increases from 9.3 months from diagnosis to 12.1 months from diagnosis when Alimta is used in combination with Cisplatin, compared to the use of Cisplatin alone. This combined treatment is known as the standard of care among clinicians. Alimta not only increases life expectancy by inhibiting tumour growth but improves a sufferer’s quality of life in its final stages through reduced fatigue, cough, pain and loss of appetite. But, while some victims of mesothelioma are receiving fully subsidised access to standard of care treatment, a new report by the Allen Consulting Group shows that between 35 and 50 per cent of Australian victims of mesothelioma are not getting access to critical treatment for their disease.

There are extreme access inequities between mesothelioma patients in different states, among those attending different hospitals and between those exposed to asbestos via occupational hazard and those who cannot establish how they were exposed. The absurdities of the inequity of access to Alimta are clear: Alimta is available on the PBS to a person who is suffering from lung cancer caused by smoking; it may not be subsidised for a person living in New South Wales who has been casually exposed to asbestos fibres through renovating the family home; workers whose employment in New South Wales exposed them to asbestos fibres will receive Alimta free through the New South Wales Dust Diseases Board, but it would not be available to the wives of workers who were exposed to asbestos while washing their husbands’ asbestos-laden clothes; and the subsidy is available to all sufferers living in Western Australia, including wives, through its public hospital system but it is not available to a person living in South Australia through the same public hospital system.

We are particularly aware of asbestos related disease in my electorate because James Hardie spent 45 years manufacturing asbestos products in Camellia in the heart of the Parramatta electorate. It started operation in 1937 and ceased making asbestos products in 1983. James Hardie was thought of as a good employer. Whole families worked there—fathers, sons and brothers. Bernie Banton and his brothers left school in the seventies to work in the local factory. Ted, the oldest brother, got his younger brother a job at James Hardie. Ted died of mesothelioma and the two younger boys, Albert and Bernie, both contracted asbestosis. Bernie, still a father of teenage children, has also contracted mesothelioma.

Treatment for this disease should not be based on how or where it was contracted or whether the victim can afford to pay the $20,000 per course. Victims in this prosperous country should not be forced to fight to receive standard of care treatment or justify why they should receive equal access to treatment. Given the severity of the disease and the havoc that it wreaks on families, this is an issue that simply cannot wait. I commend the motion to the House.

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