Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2009 and, like the previous speaker, I want to focus on diabetes, but I will go through the conditional listing issues first. This is a good piece of legislation because it allows the minister to engage in conditional listing. It really means that in those circumstances where a prosthesis is necessary on the basis of clinical circumstances a listing can be given. There has been some commentary about ministerial discretion here and whether or not this is the right thing to do, but in the circumstances I think it is clear that we need to make these changes.

There are a variety of different prostheses. I see a few doctors in the chamber at the moment. As a humble lawyer, I do not propose to make any comments about the various natures of prostheses except that they are many and varied and that medical technology has advanced enormously in our lifetimes. We can barely imagine the kinds of changes that are going to happen in the next century. But the legislation does require private health insurance operators to pay benefits for prostheses which are part of an episode of hospital-substitute treatment and for which a Medicare benefit is payable for the associated professional service. It is the case that prostheses enhance the lives of so many people. All of us in this place would know constituents, friends and relatives who have been saved by knee replacements, hip replacements, pacemakers—various kinds of prostheses which have not only saved the lives of individuals but also enhanced their quality of life. They enabled these people to enjoy and have an abundant life which they could not otherwise enjoy, and I can think of numerous friends of mine whose lives were full of sport and recreation who by virtue of age, illness and injury have suffered the travails of being immobile, and who have now received hip replacements and knee replacements and have enjoyed a quality of life which they could barely imagine during their times of disability.

So what we are doing in this legislation is important. It is unclear, as the minister said in her second reading speech, whether a prosthesis can be conditionally listed in circumstances where a Medicare benefit is payable. I had a look at what the minister had to say, at the Bills Digest and at the other commentary on this matter, and it seems very clear that a surgically implanted device can be listed for general use or simply not listed at all. The conditional listing will enable the device to be listed in some circumstances. Where a patient can get access to life-saving treatments and other quality of life assistance, this will enable the person to live a productive, healthy life.

That is a fair and decent thing to do in our society. It is important that we enable all our citizens to be part of community life and to enjoy the kinds of activities which they would have enjoyed previously. We believe in social inclusion. Providing assistance by way of prostheses makes a real difference in our community life. There are many people who can participate in RSL groups, in church life, in sporting clubs as coaches and in other activities which they otherwise would not have been able to do. I am happy to speak in support of this legislation because I have seen the benefit of prostheses amongst my friends, relatives and constituents. I have seen what it can do for their lives.

The second aspect of this legislation deals with the issue of insulin pumps and ensuring that the Australian community can get access to those pumps. This will make a difference to people’s lives, particularly those of children suffering from type 1 diabetes. All of us see constituents in our offices on a weekly basis, but one of the things that really struck me the most was the meeting I had with a fellow in his thirties, married with a young son who, the next year, was intending to go to a local primary school in my home city of Ipswich. The parents came with their little boy and showed him to me and talked to me about him. They were extremely worried about how he would cope with primary school in 2008—the meeting took place just after I was elected in November 2007. I remember that meeting vividly because the mother had tears in her eyes and the father had a pained and anguished look. They had, because of their circumstances, had to borrow money from a relative to pay for an insulin pump. Even then, they were concerned about how their son would be able to manage it when he commenced year 1 the next year. It brought home to me the stark reality of the difficulties faced by parents who cannot afford a pump. It also brought home to me, who has been blessed with having two children who do not suffer from diabetes, the difficulties parents have to suffer—the anguish, anxiety and sheer agitation of thinking that their son or daughter might die at any moment of the day.

I was pleased that the Rudd government undertook to provide a subsidy of up to $2,500 for insulin pumps for people with type 1 diabetes. I took the opportunity, after that meeting, to have a look at the impact of type 1 diabetes, and diabetes generally, on my local community. This legislation will enable a new part of the Prostheses List to include those devices which are not surgically implanted so that people with type 1 diabetes will be able to get access to insulin pumps, which are integral to their lives, in the circumstances. I have had a look at what diabetes was doing to my community and I have had a look at what the Australian Diabetes Map said about my electorate of Blair in South-east Queensland. I also noted that the International Diabetes Federation asserts that, by the year 2010, 285 million people will live with diabetes worldwide. The 2006 census says that, in my electorate of Blair, which is about 70 per cent of the city of Ipswich, the Lockyer Valley and the Fassifern Valley to the west and south-west, some 5,743 people have been diagnosed with diabetes.

Local doctors tell me that there are likely to be vastly more people who are undiagnosed. On just about every statistic, whether it is on gestation or type 1 diabetes or type 2 diabetes, my electorate is almost always above the national average. For example, according to the 2006 census, there are 4,773 people suffering from type 2 diabetes in my electorate. The percentage of the group suffering from diabetes is 82.85 per cent but in my electorate it is 83.11 per cent.

The number requiring insulin, which is a more pertinent statistic, is about 1,967 of that group of people who are suffering from diabetes. The national average is 32.15 per cent, but in my electorate of Blair it is 34.25 per cent. According to the census, there were 47 people using insulin pumps at that stage. Again, we are above the national average with 0.82 per cent whereas the national average is 0.71 per cent. In my community there are 327 veterans with DVA, which is 5.69 per cent as opposed to 3.95 per cent nationally. Also, we have a large Aboriginal community in my electorate, and again, this is above the national average in that regard.

My electorate is more affected by diabetes than most others across the country so the legislation before the House is important. The fact that government is contributing large sums of money to the National Diabetes Services Scheme—according to the minister, it is in excess of $126 million—is important for my electorate. It is important that we enable families, like the family with the young fellow who came to see me after I was elected, to get access to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for things like insulin. We do expend more than $300 million on those types of medicine through that scheme. People without private health insurance suffer greatly because they cannot get access to the assistance they require and have to rely on family and friends or their own resources. It is one of the reasons I support the private health insurance schemes in this country. I think it is important that we do it. The conversations that I had with that family, and with other constituencies who have subsequently spoken to me, is what the member for Pearce had to say: the anxiety and the worry of going into their son and daughter’s bedroom in the morning and finding they do not wake up as they have had an ‘episode’. This is how they euphemistically described it to me. As a result, their beloved child is no longer with them. Health complications from diabetes impacts not only those young people, but also those people who suffer type 2 diabetes.

On 8 October I held a health forum in my electorate at the University of Queensland Ipswich campus. I want to commend Professor Helen Chenery from the Faculty of Health Sciences for her assistance and the University of Queensland Ipswich campus for their help. The University of Queensland Ipswich campus is undertaking an Ipswich study which is a long-term study into the health needs of a community in the Ipswich and West Moreton area. Professor Robert Bush is involved in that study. It is the site of the GP Superclinic, a $2.5 million commitment by the Rudd Labor government.

The focus of the GP Superclinic will be not only chronic heart disease but also type 2 diabetes and assistance to parents of young children suffering from type 1 diabetes, which are so prevalent in my electorate. This topic came up at the health forum because preventative health is so crucial with respect to type 2 diabetes. I urge the government to consider the Ipswich and West Moreton area being designated as a regional health innovation site. Diabetes is just another reason that the government should think about that, and I urge the government to spend far more than simply two per cent of our total expenditure on health and hospitals on preventative health. That is why I am incredulous about the fact that the coalition can simply oppose the reforms that are currently up in the Senate. I find it amazing, because there are decent and good people sitting opposite as there are on our side. I cannot believe they cannot see that this is a very important health innovation measure to improve the wellness of our community.

The legislation before this chamber is important. It is important because it will affect the lives of parents and young people suffering from type 1 diabetes, but it will also allow the minister to take a more clinical approach based on medical advice and make sure that prostheses are more available to and more cost-effective for our community. It will allow parents and patients to listen to the real needs of their bodies and their children’s bodies. This is important legislation. For this reason and for the health of my community I support this particular bill.

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