Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Lalor for bringing this private member's motion to the Federation Chamber. Endometriosis and pelvic pain are something that many, many, many women suffer with and often in silence—certainly in my era, it was in silence. Under the coalition government, under the fabulous work of Nicolle Flint and Nola Marino from Western Australia, these clinics were put forward and agreed to under the former coalition government. It was great news at that point in time, and I commend the Albanese government for continuing with that work.

On the surface it sounds really fabulous to have an endometriosis and pelvic pain clinic near where you live. But where I live in Mildura, women have to travel 4½ hours by car, and we know what all that bumping and jolting actually does when you are in that state. There is no specialist GP clinic with multidisciplinary care, something I will continue to fight hard for in every regional town to manage this kind of condition. Women deserve better and regional women deserve better, and I will continue to call out the Labor government for not funding the health care in the regions that it should.

When these clinics are set up and have specialists providing care, of course it's important that the doctors and specialists concerned are actually worthy of their titles. Unfortunately, the example of Teila in my electorate in Merbein is a case that I have to tell you about because it's beyond sad. She had to travel to Melbourne to see a specialist gynaecologist on numerous occasions because she couldn't access care close to home, as I said. Teila has recently found out, as a result of investigations by the media, that the gynaecologist she had put her trust in, Dr Simon Gordon—now infamous—had treated hundreds of women like her, who have now come forward with strikingly similar experiences of harm, including unnecessary or inappropriate medical procedures, failures in informed consent, dismissal of symptoms and significant physical and psychological injury. Many of these women are now living with permanent health consequences—loss of fertility, chronic pain, trauma and profound disruption to their lives and families.

Teila has experienced psychological harm due to what she now understands was unwarranted and inappropriate surgical treatment. She lives with ongoing, debilitating pain. She is a nurse and feels let down by the very system she works in. Teila's experience, like those of other women who have bravely come forward, must be formally acknowledged. The alleged circumstances must be fully investigated in a timely fashion by the appropriate national bodies.

The Australian government must work with state governments to ensure systemic and institutional issues within the hospital system are investigated and dealt with. Patient safety, informed consent and transparency must be paramount. Women in rural and remote Australia deserve more than this government is offering them. They deserve a health system that meets them where they live and delivers the high-quality, best-practice multidisciplinary care that clinical guidelines recommend. They must be protected by a strong regulatory and transparency mechanism.

I urge the government to work constructively with regional MPs, health professionals and communities to design and fund truly accessible models. Only then will we turn clinic numbers on a map into real health outcomes for the women who need it most.

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