MOTIONS

Dr WEBSTER (Mallee) (10:50): World Heart Day is fundamentally about prevention, early detection and treatment. Cardiovascular disease, or CVD for short, is not an abstract statistic in my electorate of Mallee. While 1.3 million Australians aged over 18 lived with heart stroke or vascular disease in 2022-24, there have been 634,000 CVD hospitalisations in the 2023-24 period, of which 564,000 or 89 per cent were acute care.

In Mallee, La Trobe University describes the communities involved in its local trial as among 'Australia's highest-risk regional communities'. La Trobe says Mildura experiences about 40 per cent more cardiovascular incidents than metropolitan areas such as Melbourne, with the Mallee region having the highest rates in Victoria. That in itself is staggering.

The member for Gilmore and I support Heart Foundation screening in our electorates, and both Mallee and Gilmore were specifically identified as not looking well in the Heart Foundation's Heart of the Nation report. The statistics for Mallee from their screening show that 1,943 people accessed a heart station check, and 85.3 per cent had at least one cardiovascular risk factor on that check, which means either their blood pressure is above 140/90, their total cholesterol is greater than or equal to 5.5 millimoles—I think that is what the term is; I should ask Dr Freelander, who is sitting in the chamber right now—or their body mass index is above 30.

In Mallee, 13.2 per cent had all three risk factors, and 36.8 per cent had high blood pressure. Most strikingly, 43 per cent of tests resulted in a GP referral for management or treatment discussion, and 23.3 per cent had not had their blood pressure measured in the preceding 12 months. This vital preventive screening initiative did more than raise awareness.

It uncovered substantial untreated or unrecognised risk and connected people back into primary care. This is why we need a cath lab in Mildura, which I and community advocates like Katrina Umback have been fighting for since Katrina tragically lost her husband to heart attack in his 40s. I am pleased to say, after a lot of hard work, the coalition's Medical Research Future Fund is running a heart health check community project to get strong data across our region for reasons I have just made plain.

As Katrina Umback tells me, fewer than one per cent of eligible Australians access the existing GP-led heart health check model, and the trial was testing checks undertaken at home, in a community pharmacy or at a health centre with the goal of informing future national screening policy. Sadly, the present heart health journey is that rural people may first discover heart disease when they present to an emergency department.

Consequently, Katrina turned her attention to prevention, because heart disease can be prevented or treated when detected early. Preventive health only works when people can access primary care. Doctors and those that support them are vital in primary and preventive care, of course.

Investing in primary and preventive care will help arrest the terrible mortality and morbidity rates we suffer in Sunraysia and elsewhere in regional Australia. A person's postcode should not determine their health status, but for people in Mallee it absolutely does. I began my journey in this House, representing the people of Mallee, back in 2019, and I made that statement back then.

It is heartbreaking to me that the statistics have not changed. People cannot access primary health care. They cannot access the help they need at times of crisis, particularly in preventive care.

This is something this government must address urgently for regional people.