Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to congratulate the member for Boothby for bringing on this motion. It's a very important one. Indeed, I thank her for the details in her motion that support the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, of which I have been a longstanding supporter.

I have a little bit of a history lesson. It's 99 years since Frederick Banting and his colleague Charles Best were able to purify bovine insulin for the first time, in 1921, and then subsequently use it for treatment of type 1 diabetes. Frederick Banting was somewhat of a medical hero of mine. He was a polymath, a fantastic artist, a poet, a writer, a promoter of indigenous health of the Alaskan people—he pointed out that the lifestyle factors that were impacting upon them and their children were having lifelong health effects—and a painter; some of his paintings that I have seen are absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, he was tragically killed in a plane accident, in his 40s. I think he would have had a lot more to contribute in medicine if he had survived. He also had a longstanding interest in aviation medicine. He was, with his colleague John Macleod, the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Prize in medicine, at age 32, and he remains the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Prize in medicine. His discovery of bovine insulin led to the treatment of type 1 diabetes. Before that, people with diabetes died a slow and lingering death, as there was really very little treatment other than diet and fluids. Now, of course, they survive for many, many productive years.

Frederick Banting should be remembered as one of the greats in world medicine. In fact there is the Flame of Hope, opposite the Frederick Banting House in London, Ontario, in Canada. It was lit by Queen Elizabeth II in 1989, and that flame will not be extinguished until a cure is found for type 1 diabetes. I hope to live long enough to see that cure and see that flame extinguished.

There have been many, many changes in diabetes management over the more than 40 years I have worked as a paediatrician. When I started medicine, diabetes was managed using pork or beef insulin. The testing was done by urine testing; people with diabetes used to have their urine tested rather than their blood. When I first started work as a resident in a children's hospital in 1979 was when they first developed home blood glucose monitoring; this is now standard practice. Some years ago bioengineered human insulin became available, and this led to a lot fewer side effects, less development of insulin antibodies and much better management of childhood diabetes.

I remember incredibly well the hardships that families faced in managing their young children with diabetes. I have seen newborn infants with type 1 diabetes and even toddlers presenting with type 1 diabetes. I have seen the trauma that this has put families through. I remember a little girl, Renee. She was just a gorgeous little toddler who, at 15 months, presented with type 1 diabetes. People who have toddlers know the difficulties of trying to get a toddler to eat regularly, to have their blood tested regularly and make sure they get their insulin regularly without screaming; it is incredible. With this family I went through the traumas of having a toddler with type 1 diabetes. She is now, I am pleased to report, a young woman with a family of her own and is very healthy, thanks to the advances of the insulin pump and flash glucose monitoring. She is really doing fantastically well and it was an absolute delight to see her, but I remember the traumas that those families used to go through.

I would also like to pay tribute to my nursing and medical colleagues. I helped set up a diabetes clinic at Campbelltown Hospital, in my electorate. This was a way of giving comprehensive overall care to those with type 1 diabetes in childhood. My colleagues did a fantastic job. In particular, I would like to pay tribute to our diabetes educator, who for over 20 years ran the clinic almost by herself: Sister Terri O'Sullivan. She is still doing it now. I pay huge tribute to her and the support she gives to families. I support this motion and I thank you for listening. It really is a great story.

Debate adjourned.

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