Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those of us in this place get invited to attend a weird and wonderful array of events. Indeed I got to attend one which was more wonderful than weird on Sunday. I attended the National Gynaecological Awareness Day, The Great Gynae Day Out, something that I am sure Senator Ferris has heard of. The Great Gynae Day Out was brought to us in Perth by an organisation called GAIN, the Gynaecological Awareness Information Network—a wonderful organisation of women pioneered by Kath Mazzella. She initially got together a petition highlighting the fact that we needed to know more about—and governments of all persuasions needed to do more to increase awareness of—gynaecological cancer. Between Kath’s petition and Senator Ferris’s personal endeavours we now have a Senate inquiry.

The Great Gynae Day Out was held on Sunday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, a nice hotel in Perth. It was held, as it says on the invitation, to be a fun day for everyone celebrating National Gynaecological Awareness Day. Indeed for the small amount of time I was able to attend it was indeed a fun day. As I say, The Great Gynae Day Out is an initiative originally organised by Ms Mazzella. When asked by the organising committee to nominate a date for this year’s event, she said, ‘Well, I’m not very good at picking dates. The only date that I can remember is my birthday which is 10 September.’ So indeed The Great Gynae Day Out was held on 10 September this year. It was a mixture of serious and fun events. We had the traditional welcome to country, we had the serious talk from a politician about government’s role and the importance of the network, we had dance, we had song and we had some impromptu live theatre playing out women’s stories. It was a very important event. It is a very important strategy to highlight and increase awareness of the issues that confront many women.

The Gynaecological Awareness Information Network is a network of a few formidable women. As I say, it was initially established by Kath. It is now chaired by a formidable woman whose name is Natalie Jenkins. She herself has not been a sufferer or survivor of any of the gynaecological complaints but felt the need to do something. Then there is the lovely Kylie, who is their secretary and runs their website. The Gynaecological Awareness Information Network seeks to not only provide support for women but also increase our awareness of issues of infertility; vulval pain; endometriosis, a complaint that a lot of men in our community find difficult to pronounce let alone understand the experience of; menopause; polycystic ovaries; fibroids; some sexually transmitted infections; and gynaecological cancers, those being cervical, vulval, ovarian and uterine. GAIN’s aims are to foster community awareness of gynaecological issues, provide information to empower women to develop responsibility for their gynaecological health, promote preventative gynaecological health activities and attitudes, and have a positive impact on the psychosocial outcomes of gynaecological issues. These issues are all very difficult for us to discuss in an open forum. We all too often refer to those issues as issues ‘down there’ yet they are very threatening to the lives, livelihoods and happiness of many women—an increasing number of women in our society.

Initiatives like The Great Gynae Day Out, I think, are an important step in encouraging that open debate firstly amongst women—bringing them together so they realise they do not have to deal with not only the suffering but the fear of the potential of these diseases on their own—and also in increasing discussion across the dining room table between them and the rest of their families. Of course, some of us like to get information in a more secretive manner before we are ready for that discussion. Therefore GAIN have established, through the endeavours of the lovely Kylie, a new website: www.gain.org.au. It is organised by the energetic and creative women of GAIN and also supported by the Cancer Foundation in Western Australia. It is a website that I think any woman who has any concerns about gynaecological health or diseases or who needs information to support another woman should visit. It is full of innovative, fun ways of supporting people but also has some down-to-earth, sometimes confronting information that people need to know.

As with every fun event, there was a showbag—and GAIN did not disappoint. They had showbags with information packages on pap smears and other available tests that we need to know about and also on techniques for relaxation and looking after the whole person and the whole body. In their showbag this year was a little card produced by the Western Australian state government: the Women’s Health Check Card. It has a calendar on it, and it asks you to mark when you have had your check-ups and when they are due, from 2005 to 2012. It folds easily and fits in your wallet so you can always check when you had your last test and when the next test is due.

This is an issue I think everyone should take up. It is only by having open discussions and getting more people involved that we can start to win the fight against diseases like this.