Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would also like to congratulate my good friend and colleague the member for Dobell for bringing this motion to the House.

Fifteen years ago, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Thyroid cancer is relatively rare with rates of about 13.5 per 100,000 people per year. It requires a biopsy to diagnose and, often in its early stages, there are no symptoms. When symptoms do occur though, they often include conditions which are similar to the common cold.

However, bowel cancer is a very different beast. It is more common and much more dangerous. The bowel cancer occurrence rates are higher and, unfortunately, survival rates are a lot lower. The flip side is that, compared to thyroid cancer or almost any other cancer, bowel cancer is so much easier to screen for. Leading a healthy lifestyle can go a long way towards preventing it.

Most people who develop bowel cancer have no family history of the disease and, as we have heard, the cancer can form without any symptoms. As I said earlier, I would like to thank the member for Dobell for bringing this motion to the House to provide me and others an opportunity to rise here today to raise the awareness of bowel cancer and to encourage people to get screened for it. As the member for Shortland has said: we want to encourage anyone over the age of 50 to take up the opportunity to have the free screening, because it is available. We know that prevention is better than the cure.

Government research suggests that, if everyone between 50 and 74 were screened for bowel cancer every two years, 35,000 lives could be saved over the next 40 years. That is something that I think is worthwhile investing in. Our national road toll is around 1,000 people per year, and so think of all the effort that goes into reducing that number—the road upgrades and the redesigns; the cars; the public education campaigns; law enforcement registration; and compliance checks. We can nearly save as many lives by having everyone between the age of 50 and 74 give a few moments of their time to do a simple screen test in the privacy of their own home once every two years. So it is important for everyone, even outside this age group—and we have heard the other speakers say that—to know the signs and the symptoms.

When we were talking about this motion in my office, one of the staff said that when he was in his early 20s his partner at the time had a serious health issue. She had abdominal bloating, she had bowel issues and she had fatigue. This dragged on for a few years. They did not know it at that time but all of those were signs of bowel cancer. Not many 21-year-olds know that these are the symptoms of bowel cancer. They went to the doctor and, unfortunately, she was diagnosed with bowel cancer.

The message from that is that it is really important that everyone knows that if you have blood in your bowel movements, if you are feeling anaemic, if you have changes in your bowel activity, if you have abdominal pain, cramping, bloating, unexplained weight loss and unexplained fatigue, they are all symptoms of bowel cancer and you should make an appointment with your doctor. Do not be alarmed. Just make an appointment with your doctor, explain the symptoms and, if in doubt, ask about bowel cancer.

The young woman that I just mentioned did have a tumour the size of a golf ball removed from her large intestine, and it was major surgery for a 21-year-old. The recovery period was quite intense. She had a follow-up course of chemotherapy and now, ten years later, she has the best health that she has ever had.

Bowel cancer can be a killer. But with simple screening it can be diagnosed early and with early diagnosis 90 per cent of cancers can successfully be treated. I would like to publicly acknowledge the excellent work of Bowel Cancer Australia and encourage anyone who wants to find out more information about bowel cancer go to the Bowel Cancer Australia website. Once again, I would also like to thank my good friend the member for Dobell for bringing this motion here and allowing us to raise awareness.

See this speech in context