Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In Women's Health Week I am pleased to speak on how our government is taking our commitment to gender equality seriously by making women's health a priority. We are working to break down barriers women face when trying to access quality care.

As an exec in SA Health, I ran women's health across northern Adelaide. This included two specific multidisciplinary clinics for women. As well as the clinical services, I also ran the domestic violence services and counselling; a perpetrator rehabilitation service; and BreastScreen SA, which is a statewide mammography service providing population based screening for the early detection and diagnosis of breast cancers. These women's services were particularly important in some of the less socially advantaged areas of northern Adelaide and some of the specific populations including CALD communities and Aboriginal communities that have traditionally faced additional barriers to accessing care.

Women often have difficulty accessing care, due to their focus on caring duties and putting others before themselves, and their experiences of health care, where symptoms may have been dismissed, ignored or minimised, do not encourage them to do the same again. But the barriers to women accessing effective health care are much more systemic. The reality is that women have been dismissed and ignored for centuries, with their illness chalked up to hormones, and their pain to hysteria. The very word 'hysteria' is based on the Greek word for the uterus, 'hysterikos'—thanks for that! When we're in pain, we're told it's just those pesky hormones—'Have a panadol and lie down.' And when we're sick, we're sent away with suggestions of, 'It's probably your period,' or, 'Have you tried losing weight?'

Going to the doctor can be a fight, but we must fight to be heard, believed and, most importantly, diagnosed. A correct diagnosis can transform someone's life, allowing them to manage their symptoms and pain rather than suffer with them. But the diagnosis may not be so easy for women to obtain. Cardiac conditions are the leading cause of death in women globally. Almost every hour of every day, an Australian woman dies of coronary heart disease, including a heart attack or stroke. On average, women are diagnosed with heart disease seven to 10 years later than men, and research shows that women are much less likely to undergo treatment for heart attack or angina in hospital compared to men.

Polycystic ovarian disease, a condition affecting up to 13 per cent of women of reproductive age, often takes more than two years and more than three medical practitioners to be diagnosed. This condition puts women at higher risk of heart disease and diabetes, as well as infertility. An average endometriosis diagnosis takes around seven years—seven years of pain and of struggling; seven years of telling and retelling your story with no relief. And, of course, a debilitating condition like endometriosis does not just affect your health; it impacts your ability to work or hold down a job, your ability to have a social life and your relationships with family and friends. Chronic pain such as endometriosis can take over a woman's life and impact it in all areas. On average, it takes 2½ years longer for women to receive a cancer diagnosis. I could go on, but this cannot continue and the Albanese government is working to address these problems. Our Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care, Ged Kearney, has established the National Women's Health Advisory Council that will look at how we remove the barriers that women face in the health system. The council will provide recommendations to address complex systemic bias against women and will help us make real and lasting change for women seeking care.

For the council's first year, we are focused on four priority areas: research; access, care and outcomes; empowerment; and safety. The safety subcommittee of the council will consider the cultural, social and physical safety of health care for women and how the healthcare system can play a stronger role in supporting, promoting and protecting women. This is the first step in ensuring women have equitable access to health care, and it is another step the Albanese government is taking to make gender equality a reality in Australia.

At the same time as having made historic investments in the health system as a whole, our government has also invested more than $65 million in targeted support for the health and wellbeing of Australian women, girls and gender diverse people. Australia's first endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics are opening across all states and territories. We initially had 16 in our election commitment, then it was 20 and I'm proud to say that, as of last week, it is now 22.

I joined Assistant Minister Ged Kearney on Sunday this week to open an endometriosis clinic at Glenelg in Adelaide. This clinic has been called on for years, and I can tell you that my friends in the women's health sector are very excited about this. The clinic has already had an approach to join a major endometriosis study. The clinic will use a multidisciplinary approach to help women experiencing pelvic pain get the appropriate diagnosis and to treat or manage their symptoms. It's GP led and includes a gynaecologist, an exercise physiologist, a practice nurse and a dietician, amongst others. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the results of the evaluation of all the endometriosis clinics to inform us further about best practices in care for this debilitating condition.

We all know that domestic violence is a scourge across Australia. On average, one woman a week is killed by gender based violence. There were 257 last year. GPs are often the first people that a woman discloses to. They are also often the ones who are in a position to notice a woman's injuries and talk to her about them, but this can be a really tough and challenging conversation. The Labor government's 10-year National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children, released in October 2022, invests $48.7 million to help GPs and other primary care providers to better identify early signs of family, domestic and sexual violence and child sexual abuse, and to help take action.

In Women's Health Week, I'm very pleased to see women's health and safety front and centre of this government's agenda.