Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I had the pleasure last Friday night of attending the opening of a photographic exhibition at the Monash Gallery of Art Community Space in my electorate. It was around Ronald McDonald House at the Monash Medical Centre, and it was an exhibition by a talented local photographer, Morganna Magee, which encapsulated life at the house and looked at a number of families and their children who had been staying at the house over the previous year. It got the essence of, to some extent, the struggle but also the enormous compassion that is involved in dealing with a child with serious illness and the difficulties that are faced by families, often travelling long distances and having to spend a lot of time away from home in order to try to still maintain a family relationship.

Ronald McDonald House is an excellent initiative in the local location. It is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and the local facility can accommodate 15 families on any given night. Since opening in 1993, it has helped over 9,000 families who have needed to travel to care for their sick child at Monash Children's Hospital. It needs to grow, because the hospital there is growing. They are working now on how they can seek to achieve that outcome. I would like to thank all those involved with the exhibition and congratulate those involved in what is an excellent charity.