Page 2133 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 6 August 2014
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We also promised an additional $2 million a year for preventative health strategies. If we had seen that come to fruition we could imagine the good that we could have done to transition our health system—which I think we all agree on—from a focus at the tertiary level to a greater focus on preventative health.
The other issue that extends out of this is the self-management of chronic disease, including obesity, and many of the comorbidities associated with chronic disease. Certainly, an interesting area, and one that we need to put more focus on as well, is that if someone is obese and has diabetes type 2 or other associated illnesses, we should make sure that we are supporting them with their self-management of that disease. There are certainly steps that could be taken to do that. There are organisations already doing that within the ACT—Diabetes ACT, the Heart Foundation and other associated organisations.
At the last election we took forward a proposal to support and augment the self-management of chronic illness so that people who are suffering from obesity and other associated illnesses are essentially not just requiring medical experts to help them but can actually help themselves.
On the issue of weight loss surgery, I think this is worth having a go at. It is implemented in other jurisdictions—in New South Wales, Victoria and WA. I have researched the public funding for bariatric surgery, weight loss surgery, in those jurisdictions. But I would sound a note of caution. We are expending public funds, and we need to make sure that the people who have access to that surgery are the people at the morbidly obese end of the spectrum. This is not cosmetic. This is for people who are seriously ill and at risk of other conditions and who need that surgery.
We need to make sure that the patients are carefully selected based on evidence and that the patient care pathway includes a clear referral process, comprehensive presurgical and peri-operative patient assessment and monitoring, and post-surgical follow-up and monitoring to assess those patients. It needs to have input from a multidisciplinary treatment team, and good linkages between the surgery and community healthcare providers and nutrition programs, as well as programs to support physical activity and the required changes to eating behaviours.
In line with that, I indicate that I will shortly be moving the amendment that has been circulated in my name. There are two intents from this amendment. Firstly, it is to make the point that in order to change the culture, in order to change the behaviours, in order to get weight down and to tackle obesity, it does not have to be about banning everything. It can be about having positive change in our community.
I want to emphasise that, as we make these changes and take these steps, let us make sure that we are encouraging our community to be healthy, that we are saying that weight loss is a priority, that tackling the obesity crisis is a priority, but that we are not going to impinge on everybody’s freedoms all the time to get there. I think that is an important point to make.
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