Thursday, 8 February 2024

 Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (17:16): (514) Our women’s health 2023 survey shows four in 10 Victorian women live with chronic pain and one in three have conditions that impact their ability to work. Ergo for too long women have been experiencing pain that has all too often been neither believed nor addressed. They are told ‘Take a paracetamol’, ‘It’ll get better when you have children’, ‘Use a hot-water bottle’ or ‘It’s all in your head’, instead of having the true cause of the pain investigated. We all know that pain is real, women deserve to be believed and women want solutions, so we have launched Victoria’s first inquiry into women’s pain to examine the systemic issues and hear directly from Victorian women. Further to that, the action that I seek is for the Minister for Health to come to the electorate of Albert Park to better understand the kinds of pain and associated conditions that the women in my electorate have been experiencing for who knows how long. It would be very helpful, I think, to further that consultation and engagement on this very important subject.