Page 3538 - Week 11 - Thursday, 24 September 2015

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The reason I have outlined this data in such detail is that it highlights the absolutely critical need for us to continue to invest in and expand health services in Canberra to treat cancer. The reality is in the next 10 years in the ACT we will have an increasing number of cancer patients to treat. In the next 10 years in the ACT, with appropriate diagnosis management and treatment options, increasing proportions of patients will continue to survive cancer.

In Canberra we need to continue to invest in better screening, better early interventions, better treatments and better care. We need to invest in the capacity of our hospitals and ensure that lives are not ever put at risk merely because there are simply not enough treatment spaces or hospital beds, screening facilities or early interventions.

I am delighted that we now have the Canberra Region Cancer Centre. I think it is excellent, and it provides a very good service to cancer sufferers throughout the ACT and region. The work done by the medical, allied health and administrative team at that centre is amongst the best in the nation. In the centre, Canberrans are lucky to have such committed and compassionate staff. The level of care is of the highest quality, and the staff of the centre deserve our highest praise for the challenging and sometimes heartbreaking work that they do day in, day out.

However, as is always the case, more investment is needed to provide more services to deal with the expected growth in patient numbers and embrace new treatments. More treatment is needed, and more investment is needed to free up the currently overcrowded Canberra Hospital and meet projected needs for cancer and other patients. As Ms Fitzharris alluded to, at the moment for paediatric and some more specialised cancers people do have to travel interstate to receive treatment, and I am sure all of us are aware of individuals who have had to travel interstate for treatment. I know that that is absolutely heartbreaking and is really difficult in particular for parents of children who have to travel to Sydney to receive treatment.

The balance between making sure that there is access to the very best treatment, which can only be achieved sometimes with the economies of scale available in Sydney and Melbourne, and the need to have services that are easily accessible to people here in Canberra is a complex issue.

Screening services are another important element of our infrastructure. Prevention work is something that we need to see increased where we can, but I think there is more that we can do to support screening services and sometimes the screening statistics we see are somewhat disappointing.

As I indicated, we are very keen to support the matter of public importance that Ms Fitzharris has proposed, but we do know that we are in a situation where budgets are tight, where priorities need to be decided, where tough decisions are going to be made both within the health system and also in terms of government expenditure. Certainly what I would say is that we as a Liberal government, if we do get elected in 2016, would see that health services, cancer services, would be an absolute priority. We do not want to see blowouts and delays in infrastructure. We do not want to see people having to wait for treatments longer than they should.


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