Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Brain Injury Awareness Week is held annually between 19 and 25 August to raise awareness of brain injury and its impact on everyday Australians. The brain is critical to how we think, feel, behave and act. Brain injury can lead to significant change in people's lives and can have devastating long-term effects if left undiagnosed and untreated.

It was my great pleasure to host a presentation in Parliament House during Brain Injury Awareness Week of the 'healthy head' campaign demonstration which is running in Alice Springs and Central Australia. I appreciate the time given by the Minister for Health and Aged Care and the Assistant Minister for Indigenous Health to attend this presentation and learn about the importance of this campaign for my electorate. A partnership between the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine—and I give a shout out to Dr Stephen Gourley, who is also in charge of the Alice Springs accident and emergency hospital—Alan Cass and all the staff at the Menzies School of Health Research, and the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, this campaign will help improve the treatment and management of concussion and head trauma for Aboriginal patients and in particular Aboriginal women. The Alice Springs emergency department is seeing a huge increase in the number of Aboriginal women who have suffered domestic and family violence. This demonstration project will produce consistent best practice guidelines and protocols for treating head trauma injury presentations that will eventually be applied in hospital emergency departments and community health centre settings throughout Australia.

Brain injury related to intimate partner violence often remains underreported or undetected during clinical assessments. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are especially impacted, being 60 times more likely than non-Indigenous women to have a head injury due to assaults. Recent research has highlighted various workforce barriers affecting prescreening and diagnostic assessments of trauma and brain injuries, including limited access to specialists, neuropsychology services and stable primary healthcare professionals with remote expertise.

Question agreed to.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 11:57