Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I recently met with a young lady named Taryn Gaskin, a local resident who's been living with type 1 diabetes since she was 11 years old. Taryn is currently working as a childcare educator. She lives independently from her parents in a unit that she has managed to purchase. She currently has a continuous glucose monitoring device, through the benevolence of a trial, and she came to talk to me about how much that had changed her life this year. She is someone who suffers from a life-threatening condition. She told about the number of times she has had to go to hospital because of dramatic drops in her glucose levels. She told me about a terrible incident when she was driving her car, of which she has no memory, and ended up in a coma in hospital for some time.

But it was a celebratory meeting because her life has changed considerably. Her parents no longer ring her every morning to make sure that she's made it through the night. At work, as an early learning educator, she can now be on her own in a room with children, whereas previously she had always been paired with another worker. So her life has changed because of the CGM device that she is wearing.

I wanted to pay tribute to this young lady for her courage and to bring her story to the chamber to impress upon people that, although the parliament has made a commitment to provide CGMs to people under 21 years of age, there are others who desperately need to have this constantly in their lives, and Taryn is one of those people. Her condition is not one where she can learn to monitor her levels, because they are so drastically different. But she has said that, in the period in which she has had access to the device, her levels are starting to stabilise. Fortunately, a local community organisation has committed to $2,000 in funds for next year to ensure she gets a second year with the device.

This has been life-changing for this young lady and for her family. They are courageous people who encouraged their daughter to be independent and to continue to have an independent life. As a mum, I know what that would have taken—how torn they would have been about that. This device has really helped her become an independent person and has helped her make a great contribution to our community and to society. I encourage those opposite to commit to lengthening and widening the access to this device to other type 1 diabetics. (Time expired)