Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, 2020 is the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, and, as the year draws to a close, I want to pay tribute to them in this House. Midwife is an ancient word, meaning 'with women'. And in 2020 midwives have been there for those women feeling so alone in pregnancy, in childbirth, and in navigating their new family without the usual face-to-face love and support of grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends.

And across every emergency department and in hospital wards, aged-care facilities, mental health outreach, GP practices, COVID-testing clinics and home-based care there have been our nurses. Record numbers signed up to return to practice. It has been all hands to the wheel. They are the cornerstone of our pandemic response, the backbone of our healthcare system: whether it be Debbie Rogers leading her team in Alexandra; Anna Van Uden leading the midwifery team at Albury-Wodonga Health; Leonie McLaughlin and the nurse educators at Mansfield District Hospital; or our young Indi nurses Hannah Nolan, working at the Royal Children's Hospital, or Lucy Macleish at the Royal Melbourne Hospital; or our aged-care specialists Steve Voogt and Heila Brooks, seconded for their expertise to respond to the Melbourne crisis.

Our nurses and midwives have made an enormous difference in the lives of people in my electorate and beyond. To all those nurses and midwives in Indi and across Australia and the world, for your expertise, care and compassion in this uncertain year, and every year, we are grateful.