Thursday, 16 November 2023

Pink Elephants Support Network

Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:46): (597) My adjournment is for the Minister for Women, and I am calling on the minister to acknowledge and provide a commitment for significant financial support for the Pink Elephants Support Network. The network hosted a morning tea at Parliament House on 19 October – it is a while back now – to raise awareness and lessen the stigma around pregnancy loss. It was really distressing to hear that an estimated one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, with Victoria having around 18,500 pregnancy losses reported each year.

I myself am one of these people that has experienced this loss, and I can testify to the pain that one goes through when you are desperately wanting to have a child and you lose that. I had hoped to have all my children much closer together. They are still close together – they are two years apart for four kids – but I can tell you, you never forget the ones you lost. I have many friends as well that I know have gone through this. For some of them the loss was a little bit later, so it was required to have a funeral, and it was very difficult. It is a difficult time, and I can say that there are many women that grieve in this time but there are also men. We even heard from some of the members in the other house that are in the coalition of the grief and loss of what it means to lose a twin or to actually have a twin be born premature and not manage to survive. To lose a baby through miscarriage is to suffer a grief that is confusing and isolating without any real answers. It has been described as open heart surgery without an anaesthetic. It is very difficult for people to talk about. They do not go around telling their friends. They will only find a few people that they might share it with. For some reason it is something that we keep to ourselves, and I think that makes the emotional pain much more difficult to overcome. It can lead to mental impacts, and it is experienced by many women and their partners across Victoria.

This particular service, the Pink Elephants Support Network, aims to ensure that families know that they have the support services and the resources available to them. It was wonderful to see that this was not just a bipartisan event but a multipartisan event, that it was supported by people from across all sides of the chamber and that many people understood this tremendous loss that women and families and partners go through when an anticipated little one never eventuates or does not make it. Despite over 100,000 Australians experiencing this profound physical and emotional health issue each year, early pregnancy loss is continually minimised and ignored when it comes to ongoing government funding, research and formal support pathways. This can result in poor mental health, as I have mentioned, and if people are left to their own devices to navigate it, it means that they can actually get worse and have other issues develop. So please fund this, Minister.