Thursday, 14 November 2019

 Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (10:02): I was too young to remember the first time I accompanied my father to the then Peter MacCallum Clinic on Little Lonsdale Street, but that building became a very big part of my life over the next 17 years as it helped Dad fight the ravages of cancer. In the years since I have seen Peter Mac established as a hospital just a stone’s throw from where I am standing now and more recently as a comprehensive cancer centre in Parkville. The new centre looks mighty impressive, but I often said a silent prayer as I passed that God might spare me from ever having to go in there. Sadly, he must not have been listening, and my younger sister was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer.

Earlier this year I entered the new Peter Mac for my sister’s first chemotherapy treatment. It was brighter and friendlier than what I remembered from all those years ago, but there was no getting away from the fact that the big C still hung heavily over us. Throughout the course of this year my little sister has been to hell and back, with the impact of treatment knocking her around badly. All the while, the support and caring from the people at Peter Mac was the same as our father experienced five decades before.

Last week we got the news we had been hoping and praying for. My sister is now free of the cancer that just a few months ago was threatening to take her away from us. Professor Michael Henderson is a superhero, and oncologist Dr Courtney McDonald is a living treasure. The rest of the team has our gratitude forever. Despite the financial pressures it faces, the Peter MacCallum comprehensive cancer centre is working miracles every day. It gives hope, it gives life, and mine is just one family among many it has saved from immeasurable grief.