Julia Banks (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This week is Women's Health Week, an annual national campaign to raise awareness of the importance of women's health and wellbeing in Australia. Women's Health Week is led by the not-for-profit Jean Hailes foundation, which has partnered with the Australian government since 1997 to provide evidence-based information on the prevention, early detection and management of chronic disease for all women throughout all stages of life. The Turnbull government is contributing $8.25 million to Jean Hailes over three years from 2016 to support them in this important work.

Imagine these symptoms: a sudden and severe gripping pain in the chest, a pain that radiates down the arm, and shortness of breath. If you described these symptoms to the average Australian, they would assume and describe them as the symptoms of a heart attack, for which urgent medical attention would be sought. This would be a correct assumption; it is generally well known and there is high awareness of this. What is lesser known, but an undeniable fact, is that the symptoms of a heart attack for a woman are often very, very different. Typically, for women, the symptoms start with a feeling of general tiredness, feeling unwell, a heaviness in the chest going up through the jaw, or an ache in the arm that radiates through to the back and shoulder blades. They can also feel shortness of breath and nauseousness, and women often describe themselves as not feeling quite right.

I've had the pleasure of meeting with Dr Linda Worrall-Carter, who's the founder and CEO of Her Heart, a not-for-profit organisation that combines expert advice and information to increase awareness of the risk of heart disease in women. Dr Worrall-Carter has carried out research in this area for over 15 years. According to Dr Worrall-Carter's research, the following points are made in relation to heart attack in women. Of course, we can't change our family history, but there are other elements that we can, such as stopping smoking, controlling blood pressure and diabetes, and managing our weight and stress. If women smoke and are on a contraceptive pill, they are 10 times more likely to have a heart attack. Women are three times more likely to die of heart disease than cancer. In fact, heart disease kills more women than all cancers combined. Australia loses one woman every hour to heart disease. Eighty per cent of deaths are preventable and can be managed through simple lifestyle changes.

Heart disease is still considered a man's disease and is often assessed using men's symptoms, which has often proven fatal for women. Forty-two per cent of women who have suffered a heart attack die within the first year, compared with 24 per cent of men. Upon diagnosis, women are often referred for fewer tests and treatments. In postdiagnostics, the statistics of recovery are worse. During recovery, women have more depression and are less likely to be referred to cardiac rehabilitation. The biggest increase in heart disease is in the 25-to-40-year age group, and this is due to the obesity epidemic and the rise in chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Traditionally, women are not good at prioritising themselves, which is especially so for women who are members of what is commonly known as the sandwich generation—that is, women who are more often the primary carers of children as well as ageing parents. Furthermore, women often delay seeking treatment, as there is poor awareness that this is a major health issue for women.

I applaud Dr Worrall-Carter's work and passion to raise awareness of heart disease so that women's lives across Australia can be saved. The vision of Her Health, her not-for-profit organisation, is to work with women to raise awareness of heart disease, the biggest killer of Australian women, and exponentially increase women's chances of avoiding and/or surviving this silent killer. By 2025 we aim to decrease the deaths from this disease by 50 per cent.

A healthy lifestyle, including diet and exercise, is also a critical component in preventable heart disease in women. Women's risk of heart attack is cut in half by vigorously exercising for at least 20 to 30 minutes every day, and we all know that education is best started in the community at a young age. To this point, the Turnbull government's commitment to improve the health and wellbeing of Australian women included a commitment of $17 million over 2015 to 2017 to encourage improved participation in physical activities of girls between 12 and 17, through the Girls Make Your Move campaign, to help reduce the risk of chronic disease. I'm so proud of the Turnbull government's commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of all women in Australia.