Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to congratulate the member for Parramatta for bringing this important motion to the parliament. I must put on record my disappointment at the previous member trying to politicise such an important debate, one that all women and all members of this House should be behind. There is no cancer that is as hard or as difficult to detect as ovarian cancer, which affects so many women without the chance of recovery being so great.

Some 1,200 women in Australia are diagnosed each year with ovarian cancer, 800 die of it and over 70 per cent—although some figures say 80 per cent—of women diagnosed with the cancer do not live past the five-year mark. Where the cancer has spread, it is very difficult to treat. Because it is so hard to detect, invariably the cancer has already spread. The most common symptoms are abdominal bloating, feeling full, appetite loss, unexplained weight gains, constipation, heartburn, back pain, urinary frequency, fatigue and abdominal or pelvic pain.

I recently lost a very dear friend to ovarian cancer. She was diagnosed on 29 September 2003 at Belmont Hospital. She was operated on within a couple of days at John Hunter Hospital. She died on 15 April this year. Her name was Vera Dybell, a wonderful woman and a very brave woman who never complained and fought right to the very end. She had had no symptoms whatsoever. She was a healthy woman and she lived each day actively but she suddenly became ill. She could not stop vomiting. It was only because she struck a very good obstetrician at Belmont Hospital that the ovarian cancer was diagnosed as quickly as it was. Unfortunately, the doctors knew after she had her first operation that it had not been successful. They had removed all the cancer that they could see but they knew some cancer was left behind. So she had three bouts of chemotherapy and she lost her hair on two occasions, yet she stoically stood up and fought her battle against cancer. She then had a blockage of the bowel caused by the ovarian cancer spreading to the bowel. She was operated on, and I think that was probably at Christmas two years ago. She was very sick at that stage but she recovered and came back until very recently, when she had another blockage and, unfortunately, they were unable to treat her.

Jeannie Ferris, a former member of the Senate, also died of ovarian cancer. The victims are women who are very aware, know their own bodies, look after themselves and have regular health checks. They are probably women who would never have thought that they would develop ovarian cancer. I know that in Vera’s case her stomach became very swollen. Her husband told me it swelled up like a balloon, which is another one of the signs. Apart from getting very ill very quickly, Vera had no other sign.

It is an insidious disease. Women cannot discover they have it through having a pap test. They can discover it only by having a vaginal CT scan. There are blood tests—there is the CA125 blood test, but it on its own is not conclusive. The only conclusive test to prove that a person has ovarian cancer is the taking of a biopsy. I think that shows there is a real need for all members of parliament to get behind this motion to support further research into the cause and treatment of ovarian cancer and to see what we can do to deal with this, the sixth biggest killer of women in Australia as far as cancer is concerned. We do need to deal with it. We need to get in place proper programs and research. (Time expired)

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