House debates

Wednesday, 7 February 2018

Statements by Members

Health Care

1:45 pm

Photo of Anthony AlbaneseAnthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

This week, I received a heartbreaking letter from one of my constituents, a 33-year-old father of young twin boys under the age of two and husband of a grade III brain cancer survivor, Emma. He wrote to me about the experience of Emma being found to have cancer and what they went through in terms of treatment at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and then overseas in Seattle, where they went to get proton radiation therapy, a targeted therapy not yet available in Australia.

While they were in Seattle, they also went through a period where they received medicinal cannabis support in order to help her health condition. He has outlined to me how difficult it has been to get that treatment legally here in Australia because of the limited operation of it. This is something where I think the government, with its support for exports, has received congratulations across the board. They need to look at this and we need to make sure that people aren't forced into accessing this treatment through illegal— (Time expired)

Comments

No comments