Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I officially opened the $1 million expansion of the Far North Queensland Cairns Medical and Skin Cancer Centre. The expansion includes a dedicated surgery space with a view to being accredited as a bulk-billing day hospital. In fact, the centre is the only bulk-billing skin cancer centre in our region offering anything from skin checks, biopsies, skin cancer surgery and all of the follow-up care. Owners Dr Vin and Tarlia Rajeswaran have overseen a growth in their business in the last few years from a humble beginning some 3½ years ago, when I actually opened the centre with one doctor and 200 patients. The centre now has more than 42,000 patients from as far away as Weipa and the lower Gulf. The centre employs 40-odd staff now with 10 full-time doctors. It is a national training centre for the SunDoctors, which means doctors from across the nation are coming to Cairns to train. Melanoma is to the fourth most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia, with about 15½ thousand people diagnosed each year. Sadly of those 15½ thousand people, over 1,700 will die each year despite melanoma being largely a preventable cancer. The Rajeswarans are extremely dedicated and passionate about their work and—put simply—their work is saving lives and, for that, they should be acknowledged in the highest possible way.