Page 2451 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 1993
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We also know that when cases are reported they are reported to the New South Wales Cancer Council registry. That registry was set up to look after New South Wales and, therefore, incomplete ACT statistics do not have a dramatic priority for them. As Mr Berry is the first to know, the latest complete breast cancer figures for the ACT are those for the period from 1978 to 1982. Figures that old are not useful for anything. No matter how you look at it, they are just not useful.
The Cancer Council and the AMA - and, for that matter, just about everybody else in this community - are saying that we need a cancer registry now. The AMA and other groups are saying, "We should look at this logically". That would be a bit of a problem. They are saying - and it seems quite logical to me - that we are in the process of setting up a cervical cancer registry; we are in the process of organising better breast cancer screening. Would it not be very sensible not to have three cancer registries but just one? If we are going down the track of a cervical cancer registry in the ACT, would it not be sensible at the same time - I know that this is pretty rash thinking - to set up a comprehensive registry?
The AMA, the doctors and the other associations that are involved in this say that there is already an agreed national set of information that has to be given. A national cancer statistics clearing house has been agreed to by all interested parties - by the Australian Institute of Health, State governments and so on. The actual format for reporting has already been agreed to - the first four letters of the surname, the first two letters of the given name, the initial of the second name, sex, date of birth, some information on the morphology of the cancer and so on. All of this is already agreed. They are saying, "So that we do not get any duplication, would it not be stunning to adopt what has already been adopted and not have a situation where we are likely to end up with three different approaches - one for breast cancer, one for cervical cancer and, maybe one day, in the fullness of time, one for everything else?".
They are saying that there are a lot of private doctors, private pathology laboratories and private hospitals and that it is a bit difficult to convince private operators to fill in forms, but they are saying, "Would it not be sensible to have one form?". Would it not be sensible to use possibly some of the money that the Commonwealth Government have set aside to allow us to set up a registry and to approach this matter in a rational and logical fashion which would save us money, which would save duplication, which would make sure that doctors who are reporting have one form upon which to report? We could do it very quickly, because they are all happy to be part of it tomorrow.
Mr Berry: There you are - tomorrow!
MRS CARNELL: That is what the doctors are saying. The doctors are saying that they are willing to be part of what could be, in the first instance, a comprehensive voluntary approach, with legislation obviously coming later. You would know that in Tasmania they used a voluntary register until they managed to get up their legislation for a mandatory approach.
Mr Berry: That is what is happening here.
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