Tuesday, 27 August 2024

Adjournment

Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (17:15): I move:

That the house do now adjourn.

Prostate Cancer Awareness Month

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:15): (1067) September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, and this is an issue dear to my heart after losing my brother to prostate cancer six years ago almost to the day. The Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia came and met with me last week, and they are concerned around the lack of awareness that many Victorian men have around this really terrible disease. Last Thursday was Daffodil Day. It raises funds for vital research and also provides great hope and represents that hope for a cancer-free future. They do a tremendous job in raising that awareness and funds through that program. But in Australia the latest statistics are that 26,368 Australian men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2024 and 3901 Australian men will die from prostate cancer this year. In Victoria in 2022 there were 5821 Victorian men diagnosed with prostate cancer, and since 2013 to 2022, those last statistics that I could find, the incidence has increased by an average of about 1.5 per cent per year. The mortality has stabilised between that period as well, so we are not really making big inroads in terms of the severity of this disease.

When I was speaking to representatives from the Prostate Cancer Foundation they were talking about the need for greater awareness, and I agree with them. I think there needs to be a much bigger emphasis on men’s health and prostate cancer. We have brilliant programs around breast cancer – Pink Lady days and a range of really fabulous initiatives that raise that awareness of those suffering from breast cancer – and I would like to see the same initiative and the same emphasis and activity put into men’s health and prostate cancer. I was pleased to hear that Professor Jeff Dunn, who is the chief of mission and head of research for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, said that greater awareness would be key to reducing deaths from this disease, and it would be. We need to be educating, detecting early, looking at family histories and identifying those risks so that other men do not have the same poor outcomes that we are seeing, and we need to be doing more to ensure that Victorian men, and indeed men right around the country, have a better rate of survival. There is fantastic advancement in medical technologies and treatments – there is no doubt about that – but prostate cancer takes too many men’s lives each year, and the action I seek therefore from the Minister for Health is that she actually prioritises men’s health and raises the awareness of prostate cancer as well.