John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I spoke on Monday about the importance of health breakthroughs to treat previously untreatable conditions. That we live in an age where we can turn so many conditions from death sentences into minimally intrusive chronic conditions is incredible. But not all medical breakthroughs solve problems for the first time; some just solve old problems better. A quicker, less invasive, safer procedure is always worth looking for and we have many companies in Bennelong which are doing just that. The treatment I would like to highlight today is called TAVI, which is the uncomplicated way of saying 'transcatheter aortic valve implantation'. This is a new and, frankly, better way of treating heart valve disease. Heart valve disease is a little known condition that we will be hearing more about in coming years. Quite simply, it's the degradation over time of your heart valves. It doesn't matter if you're fit or unhealthy; sometimes your valves just wear out. It's entirely non-preventable and can happen to anyone and, as our society is growing older, it will inevitably happen to more and more people. As Chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Heart and Stroke Foundations, I launched a report into this alongside my friend and co-chair, the member for Calwell. The Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute's report, Our hidden ageing: time to listen to the heart found that more than half a million Australians have heart valve disease, and that 254,000 Australians have faulty heart valves and don't even know it. Left untreated, this can result in complications like heart failure, stroke and death. Currently, the treatment is open-heart surgery, one of the most dangerous surgeries around, involving the complete opening up of your chest and the obvious months of rehabilitation that follow. Every extra day spent in rehabilitation is more pain and inconvenience for patients, more delay to the system and more cost to the taxpayer.

Here's where TAVI comes in. It's a procedure that allows valve replacement to occur in a minimally invasive way. It's a keyhole procedure involving an artificial valve made of natural animal-heart tissue being implanted into the heart. It is less intrusive, cheaper, quicker and, critically, requires hardly any rehabilitation. At the report's launch, we heard from a 71-year-old patient, Phil Holmes, who was back exercising and at work within days of his surgery. So what's holding up the treatment? Unfortunately, we are! Currently, it is only available for high-risk patients in private hospitals. The Medical Services Advisory Committee has now recommended TAVI for both intermediate- and low-risk populations as well. But, as yet, the government hasn't funded it. If we did fund it, we could save time and money and give fruitful lives back to thousands of Australians with this condition. Let's just do it.

See this speech in context