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

I rise today to acknowledge the fantastic work that is currently being done by the wonderful team of medical professionals currently on location in the Philippines. As you would all know, last week 35 members from the Australian Medical Assistance Team, AusMAT, left Darwin to provide their support to the thousands of Filipinos injured by Typhoon Haiyan. This was a terrible tragedy that devastated cities, towns, communities and families and left an appalling list of casualties, killing thousands and injuring thousands more.

The AusMAT team was co-ordinated by the Darwin-based National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre, which was established by former Prime Minister John Howard to deal with crises such as this. Figures supplied by my friend and colleague Minister Dutton show that since Saturday the AusMAT team has performed 72 surgeries, treated 587 outpatient cases and treated 108 inpatients in the field hospital.

This morning Minister Dutton announced a second deployment will leave Darwin next Wednesday. I wish them all the best and thank them for their great work.