Jeannie Ferris (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Community Affairs Committee report Breaking the silence: a national voice for gynaecological cancers. Gynaecological cancers are not very often spoken about in the community, and those several hundred women each year who are diagnosed are often not able to find the support that they need. Some women say that when speaking of gynaecological cancers they have feelings of guilt, of shame and of embarrassment. As a result, the journey for gynaecological cancer sufferers is taken in a very painful silence. The symptoms are vague. This report outlines the cases of many women who courageously came and gave evidence to our committee and talked of their own experiences with various gynaecological cancers and in particular of the difficulties that they found because there was no national centre that they could go to for advice, comfort or support in their journey.

Today, 22 women—colleagues of mine in this place, including my colleague and friend Senator Fiona Nash and my colleagues across the chamber Senator Jan McLucas and Senator Ruth Webber—signed a letter to the Minister for Health and Ageing, Tony Abbott, asking him to find a way to review the decision that was taken and announced today related to the use of Gardasil, the cervical cancer vaccine. It is very interesting that, once again, the women in this chamber have come together, as they have a number of times in the recent past, to argue for women’s issues which go beyond party politics. It is a credit to all women in this chamber that they see these issues as not being issues related to a single political party but being issues that are related to all women of all ages across Australia. This cervical cancer vaccine issue affects all women of all ages.

Nobel Prize winner Professor Ian Frazer and his team have developed this vaccine, which is found to be 100 per cent effective in protecting women from infection from the four strains of the human papilloma virus, which together now cause 70 per cent of all cervical cancers. These are particularly nasty cancers, and the statistics are very frightening. Some of the statistics that were reported to the committee and are represented in our report show that, in 2001, 1,537 women were diagnosed with uterine cancer and 735 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer. That number has increased a little because of the ageing of the population and also the fact that that statistic is now five years old. But there is no doubt—no doubt at all—that this particular cancer can become part of the history of terrible diseases that have befallen women in the past. This statistic can go gradually down to a very small number with the use of the vaccine Gardasil. It is very important that we look at ways in which this vaccine can be made available more quickly. I was particularly reassured to hear the Prime Minister say that it is not ‘if’ but ‘when’ this vaccine will become available. That is wonderfully reassuring, but what I want to see is that ‘when’ to be as quickly as possible: not next March and not 2008.

The provision of high-quality treatment for women with cancer, whether it is cervical cancer, ovarian cancer, vulval cancer or any of the other gynaecological cancers, is a critical element in improving health outcomes for women with these forms of cancer. Evidence showed that access to treatment was not equal across the community. Our report shows that a disproportionate number of women from rural, regional and remote areas, Indigenous populations and culturally diverse populations generally had very limited access to the services that they needed, whether it was for the initial diagnosis, for the surgery, for the post-operative treatment or for the psychosocial support. It is difficult for those women in all of those areas.

We concluded unanimously—again, across parties, all women on that committee, and Senator Gary Humphries, the chair of the committee—that there is value in bringing people together to strengthen the understanding of gynae cancer issues at the political and policy level and to provide many of the answers that are needed to lessen the impact of these cancers on women and their families. The committee found, and it is reflected in the report, that there should be increased and better coordinated funding to drive new developments in gynaecological oncology and to make more effective use of Australia’s talented researchers and investigators, the priority being given to a screening test for ovarian cancer to enable earlier identification of the disease and successful treatment, hopefully lowering those awful statistics that we heard about in evidence.

The principal recommendation from the committee, reported in the report we are discussing tonight, was for funding for $1 million to establish a national gynaecological cancer centre where we can coordinate, under the banner of the new organisation, Cancer Australia, to form a focus, a framework, for women and their families to have direct access to information on gynaecological cancer, so that when they are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and they type ‘ovarian cancer’ into the search networks on the internet they are not taken to websites in the United States and they are not directed to the Breast Cancer Centre. If you go through the Breast Cancer Centre’s website, you will find some material on ovarian cancer but not on the other cancers. What we want is our own national support group so that not only the women but also their families, their children, the doctors who first diagnosed them, the subsequent surgeons and the wonderful specialists who take care of them can be directed to a source of information.

The My Journey Kit has helped so many women with breast cancer in this country to know where they are going to go; what is going to happen to them; and how, luckily, they are in the statistical group in which more than 80 per cent will be cured. With gynaecological cancers those figures are lower, but, if we are able to get the survivors of these cancers to present My Journey Kits to people who are early diagnosis patients, we can give them the support, the psychosocial underpinning, if you like, that they need. They can then face their journey in the confidence that there are people who have survived these cancers, and can be willing to take part with a helping organisation, as you do, Mr Acting Deputy President Barnett, with the diabetes foundation. We can take part, as survivors, in helping newly diagnosed patients to know that there is a future and that, in that future, there may well be some early test available for the awful gynaecological cancer of ovarian cancer. Together with Gardasil, we will start to reduce the numbers and the awful statistics that apply to women in this country who have gynaecological cancers.