Page 2450 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 1993
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The increasing incidence of cancer places health service providers on notice that the future impact of this increase will burden health services. Cancer registration will provide the basis for meaningful forward planning. Currently, new cases of cancer diagnosis in the ACT and cancer deaths of ACT residents are registered in the New South Wales cancer registry. However, incidence registration is incomplete. I will repeat that. Incidence registration is incomplete because the reporting of new cases is not mandatory in the ACT. The ACT is the only place in this country where it is not mandatory. Close cooperation with the New South Wales cancer registry is essential if the registry is to provide an adequate basis for research and the provision of health and support services.
Mr Berry keeps harping across the other side of the house, "It is going to happen, but it is not going to happen tomorrow". Mr Berry, how much longer do you want before you are convinced that this is a very important issue for you to act upon? How much longer is it going to take for you to get into the bickie tin that Ms Follett said she had yesterday - $40m worth? We are talking about $50,000 to set up a cancer - - -
Mr Connolly: Offset against next year's gap. You do not understand public finances.
MR DE DOMENICO: It has nothing to do with you. Get back in your box. You have the numbers in the Cabinet, or so we are told. Get hold of $50,000. Let us set up a cancer registry. Let us make reporting of cancer incidence mandatory in the ACT. Let us catch up to the rest of the country and the rest of the world. You are the Health Minister. Let us have some action.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (12.06), in reply: Madam Speaker, thank you to everyone who has spoken on this motion. I would, first of all, like to clarify an obvious misunderstanding on the other side of the house. This motion was put to me by the ACT Cancer Council to put to this house. It was not put forward by me as some sort of cheap political stunt. It was put forward by a number of people who felt that they were getting nowhere in their negotiations with government and who believed very strongly that until the ACT had comprehensive reporting and registration of cancer in the ACT their capacity to plan for the future was dramatically curtailed. They have said - and they are not my figures - that the incidence of cancer in Australia will increase by 50 per cent in the next 10 years. That is a huge increase. The Australian Cancer Society is very worried, as is the ACT branch. They are saying that, unless they can get some accurate statistics, their capacity to do the job that they are there to do is dramatically undermined. They are saying that there are lots of things happening in cancer incidence in Australia, and in the ACT as well, that they cannot explain. They cannot do anything about it because they have no accurate figures.
We already know that in the ACT two-thirds of female deaths in the age group 55 to 64 are due to cancer, whereas the national proportion is half that. Those figures are based upon incomplete data. We are not sure whether they are accurate; but, if they are accurate, we have a problem and research should be done to find out what the problem is. Contrary to what Mrs Grassby said, there are no accurate figures, because reporting of cancer is voluntary, and private hospitals, pathologists and often public hospitals do not report cases of cancer. If cases are not reported it means that our statistics are flawed.
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