Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This morning I joined with Senator Louise Pratt with Arthritis Australia and the Australian Rheumatology Association for the Parliamentary Friends of Arthritis to launch the juvenile idiopathic arthritis guide. We know that arthritis impacts so many Australians, and there is nothing sadder when you meet, as I did this morning, a beautiful young girl, 12 years of age, who has just graduated from primary school, who lives with this debilitating disease each and every day. The reality is that juvenile arthritis stays with you through your entire life.

There is somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 children in Australia who have this condition. We need to ensure that there is far more awareness in schools so that those children are fully supported. The other issue confronting us is the lack of people who are qualified to diagnose these diseases, no more so than in Tasmania.