Louise Markus (Greenway, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to draw the House’s attention to the fact that last week in my electorate I was joined by the state shadow minister for health, Jillian Skinner, and the state Liberal candidate for Londonderry, Bart Bassett, to launch a petition to return mobile breast screen vans to the Hawkesbury. Mobile breast screen services to the Hawkesbury quietly stopped in September 2009. Local women are only realising now, after their reminder letter has turned up in the mail, that they must organise to travel for a mammogram.

Mobile services in Richmond and Castle Hill have been replaced by screening units set up in select Myer department stores, with the closest being at Parramatta, Blacktown, Penrith and Lithgow. I am gravely concerned that access to such a vital service has been removed instead of increased and that regional residents are missing out on equitable access yet again.

One in nine New South Wales women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. Many of us know someone who has been touched by breast cancer. It is so important to make access to services such as breast screens easier rather than harder. The option of Myer stores for breast screens is helpful to those people who can travel greater distances; however, for many senior women, who do not often visit big department stores, a Myer store is not an easy or accessible option. Some of them prefer not to travel to department stores, whereas others physically cannot. Women from Colo Heights and Kurrajong with health challenges and little access to public transport have told me it is nearly impossible to access these services now that the mobile units have been axed. This is why the mobile units were ideal and helped to ensure such women received regular mammograms.

Access to mobile breast-screening services in small towns around the state of New South Wales has been removed. There still needs to be access to mobile breast-screening units for women who cannot get to a Myer store or hospital easily. It is vital that mobile services be reinstated to those areas of the Hawkesbury along with the rest of greater New South Wales so women in our local communities can have easy and equitable access to screening now and into the future.

That is why I have launched a petition to the federal government, with the help of the New South Wales shadow minister for health, Jillian Skinner, urging the government to bring back mobile breast screen services to New South Wales. Women’s health must be a priority. I will fight to make it a priority. I ask the help of my community to add their voices to this petition, because together we can make a difference.