Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I am going to talk about two initiatives that are part of the health reforms being delivered under the Rudd government: one a capital infrastructure and one a community initiative. The first one is the linear accelerator. The first linear accelerator arrived at Lismore Base Hospital last week, and the local state member, Thomas George, and I both went there to visit and to be briefed about it. It was a welcome addition to our health infrastructure. When we were there we were talking about when Thomas was elected in 1999, and he has been one of the advocates for this machine ever since, as have I for that same amount of time—probably even longer. The community has also been onside.

Honourable members will know that the report that was prepared by Dr Christine Bennett talks about health services and the lack thereof in rural and regional areas. It also talks about the issue of not getting access to services, particularly services for people who have cancer who have to travel great distances—and some choose not to travel.

The technicians who put the machine together—which is quite a feat in itself—were on site putting it together. So we got to see that. We could not hold them up too much because they want to get it up and running and there are certain things that they have to do with the calibration of it and they just have to keep at it. It was really good to see. There was a lot of interest from the local media, because there is big public interest in the integrated cancer care centre.

One of the election commitments that I was able to give in 2007 was to honour the $15 million contribution from the Australian government to sit with the $12 million from the New South Wales government, and that allowed the integrated cancer care centre to be up and running this year. It was originally to be March, and there was permission for it to be in May due to the rain. Unlike Canberra, we have a lot of rain where I live. We have frequent rain events, flood events and things like that.

Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Support) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can share some of it.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is what people in Canberra and other areas around the state say. Quite often we do have delays because of the weather.

Associate Professor Tom Shakespeare will commence the first Lismore radiation oncology clinic in April, and that is very welcome. The linear accelerator will be housed in one of the centre’s two bunkers, where there is capacity for a second linear accelerator in the future—and, of course, we want another one. We have already started lobbying about that. The fact is that we have the bunker there and we will fill it. It will happen. That is what often happens in health. If you know how health works, you would know that you have it there as soon as the numbers become a reality. We know they are there notionally but they become a reality and it has to come online. We will not give up.

The radiation oncology service will also include a CT scanner for radiotherapy planning, an x-ray unit to treat skin cancers, and associated work spaces integrated with the existing cancer care unit that will relocate to the new cancer care centre in May. There are two new technical specialists. Medical physicist Nick Bennie and deputy chief radiation therapist Stephen Manley have joined the cancer care centre. Over the next three months, the linear accelerator that we looked at will be commissioned. That means that it will be up and running—it takes a while for all of that to happen—and new frontline staff will be trained.

The other local happening was the Lismore tradesman-of-the-year calendar. Six hundred copies of that have already been sold. The Northern Star reported a few weeks back that they had sold ‘faster than hotcakes’. The calendar is to raise money for the positron emission tomography scanner, the PET, at Lismore Base Hospital. We are actually going for a PET CT scanner. They are available in major metropolitan areas, and we understand that it can happen in our area. (Time expired)