Tuesday, 20 February 2024

Breast screening

Rikkie-Lee TYRRELL (Northern Victoria) (18:42): (703) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Health in the other place. Every day three women under the age of 40 are diagnosed with breast cancer. Every week one of those young women passes away. These are mothers, wives, daughters and friends. Their lives are turned upside down, if not destroyed. In many cases, sadly, these diagnoses come when this cancer is in its latest stages, making treatment longer, more harrowing and more devastating to these women and their families.

For years women over the age of 50 have been able to get mammograms – one of the most reliable ways to diagnose breast cancer – for free. Unfortunately, women under the age of 50 are not afforded the same life-saving opportunity unless they have a family history. In fact young women often have to pay in excess of $400 to access these scans. The action I seek from the minister is for the government to subsidise these life-saving scans for women under the age of 50 years and save the lives of mothers, wives and daughters in Victoria.