Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to start by commending the member for Shortland for bringing this motion to the House, and also the spirit of bipartisanship in which wonderful women of the parliament are speaking out against this insidious disease that afflicts so many women—and that is, from my personal experience of losing a family member, possibly one of the most painful and horrific ways to die.

To raise awareness of ovarian cancer, Teal Ribbon Day will be on Wednesday this week. Ovarian cancer is a disease that we know little about. There is no screening. There is no proven method of detection. Symptoms are often very, very difficult to spot. It was once considered to be a disease that we see in older women, but we are seeing ovarian cancer appear more and more in younger women all around Australia—women in their mid-30s are fading away from this disease.

My personal journey is quite interesting. Today is 22 February. Exactly one month ago today, on 22 January, my sister-in-law Hallie Parnell lost her battle with ovarian cancer. Hallie was 36. After nearly two years of treatment, Hallie was gone. Hallie's story, much like the member for Ballarat was just discussing, started with an MRI screen because, for a number of years, Hallie had endured back pain—for six years, in fact. The MRI to investigate what was going on with her back actually showed that Hallie had ovarian cancer, and she had merely weeks to live. She was diagnosed at stage 4. She was immediately taken off for an operation—a full hysterectomy. Hallie had never been married and she had no children. Hallie would not accept the prognosis of eight weeks. She went into surgery. After enduring chemotherapy, hormone replacement treatment and pain medication that was required around the clock, Hallie passed away the day before my wedding to her brother Aaron. We continued on with our wedding because she told Aaron that she would be angry if he did not continue. That was Hallie: she was always thinking about others and others' well-being before her own.

From what I observed of Hallie's treatment in Australia, I was quite disappointed. The quality of care of the nurses and doctors in our country is second to none, and the quality of support was amazing. But because chemotherapy seemed to be the only option—and Hallie's illness often made her too sick to be able to use chemotherapy—it often really seemed quite a hopeless situation. I observed many oncologists, as did the family, wanting to apply more experimental treatments that are being used in the US. We observed oncologists being forced, in many cases by health funds, to say that some of these treatments were not an option. When one specialist considered moving ahead, Hallie’s health fund sent a threatening letter to Hallie's father saying that if a specific treatment was tried they would refuse to honour her health insurance and would not pay for even her time in hospital—even after chemotherapy had not worked. The family were told by hospital staff that this was not the first letter of this kind that they had seen. To add further insult to injury, the family was told by hospital staff that the health fund was in fact phoning around to ask the hospital the names and numbers of patients who may have been considering some of these more experimental treatments. It is important that we have health insurance, but, when we have challenges like ovarian cancer that are so insidious, I do not for one second accept that this is acceptable behaviour by Australia's health insurers. My husband's family are very upset and angry that whilst Hallie was being treated this is what they endured from this health fund. I will be taking this, as a formal complaint, to the minister as I do not believe this is acceptable. I truly believe that health funds are there to help Australians.

While it is too late for Hallie, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and we must continue to work together to fight this disease. Through Cancer MoonShot 2020, the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, is giving researchers in the US the political backing to give specialists the motivation to look outside traditional chemotherapy. Results are already being seen in the US through the use of combined therapies, which are not available in Australia. After the experience of my family, and the battle of Hallie, I truly believe that we have fallen behind and we need to look outside merely using just chemotherapy. I will also be discussing this matter with the minister. I realise Obama’s idea is only a concept at the moment, but moving this forward is a really important way we can fight this.

I watched my sister-in-law Hallie Parnell fade away from being a bubbly, energetic girl from Melbourne to someone whose last conversation with me was about how she was still scared of dying. She had so much more life to live. There are so many other Australians, regardless of age, who deserve a better choice.

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