MOTIONS

Mr HOLZBERGER (Forde) (10:45): I rise in support of the motion moved by the member for Bonner and, in doing so, congratulate her on her advocacy for heart health and her advocacy for women's health generally as well. What really attracted me to this motion was that it reminded me of some of the work that's being done by a local organisation, Heart Health Qld, based in Logan and run by two awesome community volunteers, Adrian Lee-Archer and Lyn Lee-Archer, who really do—as so many community organisations do, run by volunteers, led by volunteers and run on the smell of an oily rag—so much work out there in the community to improve the lives of people in the community.

Adrian had a heart attack back in 2017, when he was living in Port Macquarie, and he started a heart support group down there. He moved up to Queensland in 2021, and his cardiologist actually said to him that there wasn't anything like that in the local area and that perhaps he should think about setting up that group. And so it was that he and Lyn set up that group in February 2024.

From nothing, they've now grown to a membership of somewhere around 170 people. They visit hospitals—in fact, they visit the Logan Hospital two or three times a week—where they see 20 or 30 patients to give them that information but also to give them that support and so they know that there is a connection for when they leave hospital, because nobody really tells you what's going to happen after you leave hospital.

To know that you have that sort of connection out there in the community is so important for people, because what he sees is that, so often, the people that are there when he meets them for the first time come back two or three months later. One of the real killers in all of this is the social isolation that happens after a heart event, because you're no longer, in many cases, able to do the activities that you were doing beforehand, so your support networks break down by virtue of the fact that you're not able to participate in those things anymore.

That creates mental health challenges, which then lead to physical health challenges, and it becomes a vicious circle, and then, all too quickly, you end up back in hospital. Adrian and Lyn see it all too often. The work that they are doing to really provide that connection and to provide that community education as well is so critical.

When I saw this motion, I really did want to take the opportunity to give a shout-out to Adrian and to Lyn for all of the work that they're doing. When we were talking about this motion, which we discussed specifically, he said it's absolutely spot on that too many people think of heart disease as a men's issue, but, actually, it is one of the leading causes of death amongst women as well.

He said that it is because, often, in women, it does not present as what he described as the 'Hollywood heart attack', which is clutching your chest, with a feeling like a bus has just parked on your chest, staggering around the room and then falling over. I think you could say that, for somewhere around half of women who experience a heart attack or a heart event, it does not present like that at all.

It might be fatigue. It might be a sore jaw. But it is not something that you would typically characterise as what he called the 'Hollywood heart attack'.

It is because of that that the impact it does have on women and women's health has been neglected, so that is something that Adrian and Lyn are focusing on as well. In fact, when you go to the website, they've even got resources there, especially for how it relates to women. And so it is this work that people are doing and that the government is doing as well through really pumping up that heart check that you can get through Medicare.

The increase between 2025 and 2026 of the number of people who are accessing that Medicare item number is somewhere around 30 per cent. So the message is getting out there, but it is getting out there because of the work of the government but especially the work of people like Adrian and Lyn in the community. I commend this motion to the House.