PMB – World Osteoporosis Day

Mr PITT: I thank those opposite for the opportunity to provide a brief contribution to this motion. Certainly World Osteoporosis Day is an important recognition of those challenges inside this part of the health sector. The reason that I’ve jumped to my feet is, quite simply, my wife is a radiographer; this is an area in which she works regularly—in fact, every single week. I do want to recognise the work of those people, both the radiographers and the radiologists, who are working in the radiology practices. As I’m sure some of my colleagues know, it can be a challenging environment to work in.

But I do want to relate one very brief story, and that’s about the toughness of our people. Bone-D scans are things that do happen regularly, every single day, on a full list. But I’ve got to say that typically they tend to be hardy older women. The story I want to relate—clearly I can’t break any confidences—is about a lady who came in for a bone-D scan and who was then promptly sent off for an X-ray, because she’d been in a fair bit of pain and was feeling uncomfortable. When my wife completed the X-ray, she found this lady had a broken hip; it was completely snapped off. She said to the patient, ‘Are you in any pain?’ The answer to that was, ‘It’s a bit uncomfortable, love.’ So I just want to reflect on the resilience of the Australian people. It is important to keep your diet right, to do what you need to, to take the advice of your doctor. Particularly given that I have probably the highest number of people on the age pension of any electorate in Australia—I have some 45,000 people on a concession card for the age pension—my electorate is a place where this is something that happens regularly.

So I just want to say thanks to those opposite for giving me an opportunity to make a brief contribution. It is an important matter that we are discussing, and I would urge all of those in my electorate to do what you need to do, take the advice of your medical practitioner. I also want to give a shout-out to all who are in there, doing this work—I can’t use their full names obviously, for reasons that everyone here knows—including Alison, Nat and Tracey, who do a lot of the bone-D work in those local facilities.