Thursday, 6 March 2025

Ministers statements: women’s health

Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (14:38): Last week in the media we heard some disgraceful, dismissive commentary about women’s pain – comments that, sadly, many women in this house and many women around the state would know all too well – that their pain is not real, that their pain is not valid and that their health care matters less. As someone who has had the experience of endometriosis and the pain that goes with it, I know that these comments could not be further from the truth. It is not just me. I want to thank the thousands of women on TikTok who responded to my story last week and in turn shared their own deeply personal and powerful experiences, which I want to share with the house today.

There were women like Ash, who fought for over eight years to get an endometriosis diagnosis; Grace, whose pain stops her from getting out of bed in the morning; Kimberly, who has had four surgeries in 10 years; Rachel, who was told that the pain was all in her head; and KJ, who has had 30 operations to treat her endo. There are literally thousands and thousands of stories like these, but still there are some out there who think that they have the right to tell these women and to tell women like those of us here in the house today that we are wrong.

That is why we have established 20 women’s health clinics to treat women with endopelvic pain, perimenopause and menopause and why we have funded 150 women’s health scholarships to give nurses and doctors the skills that they need to treat these conditions and $65 million to fund over 10,000 additional laparoscopies and over $120 million to help families with the cost of their fertility care. We are doing this because in our government, my government, we believe women, we respect women and we support women. We know that women’s pain is real, and we are making sure that their care cannot be dismissed or overlooked anymore.