Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about a remarkable woman in my electorate, Dr Betty Marks, who recently retired as a GP in the local area.

Dr Betty is 90 and she has retired after a 66-year career in medicine. For the last 25 years of her career she has been working at the Queen Street Medical Centre in Murwillumbah and also caring for residents in local nursing homes. As Dr Betty said recently, it was a love of her patients that is what has kept her working to the age of 90. She has looked after some local families for four generations. Long-time patients say it is not out of the ordinary for 'Dr Betty' to call them from the surgery at 9 pm to deliver test results.

Dr Betty was born in 1924, and studied medicine at the Women's College at the University of Sydney. She graduated in 1948, securing a position at Sydney's Prince Alfred Hospital. She then married Jim, who was also a doctor, and they moved to the Tweed, where they both worked at the Murwillumbah District Hospital and then joined the general practice. During her career she saw so many advancements in the field of medicine. She also saw the introduction of Medicare and improvements to vaccines, cancer treatment and new drugs.

We wish her the very best in her retirement. She is the patron of a lot of local groups and I am sure she will devote a lot of time to them. I would like to finish with Dr Betty's words from one of the weekend papers:

There are many wonderful people who get cancers, who get terrible pains and indignities. But if you can help in any way possible, as a friend and as a doctor, and that's mostly what GPs are, I think, it is a great privilege.

So, Dr Betty, on behalf of the people of Richmond I thank you for your wonderful service to our community and wish you all the best in retirement.