Page 2673 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 1993
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MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (3.12): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity of supporting Red Nose Day. As we all know, Red Nose Day is the major fundraising activity for SIDS - sudden infant death syndrome - research. As a mother, I can imagine the horror and the impact of losing a child - a loss which would be difficult at any stage but, I suggest, even more traumatic in the case of SIDS. Sudden infant death syndrome is the sudden, unexpected death of a baby who has seemed well, or almost well, and whose death remains unexplained after the completion of a post-mortem investigation, including an autopsy.
I think we are all acutely aware of the difficulties that mothers, fathers - parents generally - have under these circumstances. That is the reason why I think Red Nose Day and the whole campaign is particularly amazing. The parents involved, the parents who have lost children this way, nevertheless have the capability of giving moral help to others. I think that is something that we all should support. Medical science certainly has improved the treatment in prevention of other fatal childhood diseases. During the debate last week on immunisation, the reduction of these diseases was well documented. Also during that debate last week, I hope that in the Assembly here we dispelled any views at all that immunisation somehow caused SIDS.
One of the great positives of Red Nose Day is that it focuses the community's attention on what is a tragic situation, and something that I think the community does not generally like to admit. We know that it must take huge courage and dedication on the part of people who have lost children to become part of this. We also know that the money that they have raised has gone a long way to identifying at least some of the contributory factors of SIDS. When I had my two children, mothers used to sleep children on their stomachs. Due to research into SIDS, we now know that that may be a contributory factor. So now children in hospitals and other places sleep either on their sides or on their backs.
We also know that temperature change is another contributory factor. Again, that has been identified by research funded by money raised on Red Nose Day. So already, although no-one has actually found a cure or a reason why SIDS occurs, there have been a lot of breakthroughs in what the contributory factors could be. A lot of those breakthroughs have been as a result of money raised on Red Nose Day.
Mr Berry very appropriately ran through the things that money raised on Red Nose Day has already achieved. They include 75 research projects, some of which are still ongoing; a SIDS sleep research centre; an international research newsletter; a register of more than 300 researchers in 24 countries; a national SIDS autopsy database; a standardised autopsy protocol; an international conference held in Sydney for 450 researchers, health professionals and SIDS parents; a national health campaign on reducing the risks of cot death - and the list goes on. Madam Speaker, the thing that is really important here is that a lot of this work is done by parents who have lost a child. As well as supporting Red Nose Day financially, we should recognise their courage and their sense of community spirit in their ongoing work for this worthy cause.
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