#Health
Target:
Senators for presentation to the Senate
Region:
Australia
Website:
www.btaa.org.au

To the Honourable President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled:

The petition of the undersigned shows:

That each year in Australia approximately 1400 people are diagnosed with a primary malignant brain tumour and many others develop a so-called “benign” brain tumour, or metastases (secondaries) to the brain from another cancer elsewhere in the body.

That the diagnosis of a brain tumour can have a devastating effect on the individual and their caregivers because of the often poor prognosis and that brain tumours are the only cancer to affect both a person’s mental and physical capacities.

That brain tumour patients and their caregivers require special attention within the health system, bearing in mind that these tumours cannot be screened for or detected early, nor prevented by lifestyle changes, and can randomly affect the young and old, male or female.

Your petitioners request that the Senate:

1. Urgently provide funding for the creation of positions of brain tumour care coordinators who will be able to assist the patient during their journey with a brain tumour;

2. Provide for the rapid evaluation – and approval and subsidisation where appropriate - of new therapies which are available to brain tumour patients overseas but not yet available in Australia.

3. Dramatically increase the amount of research funds available for the study of brain tumours and ways of providing better support for patients and their caregivers.

4. Enable all brain tumour patients to be informed of the availability of clinical trials and provide them with easy access to these trials if they so wish.

5. Acknowledge that all children returning to school after treatment for a brain tumour have special needs and require the services of clinical psychologists and associated therapists working in liaison with teachers and parents. This assistance should be subsidised and automatically offered to all parents after the child has received treatment.

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The Petition to Senate regarding brain tumours petition to Senators for presentation to the Senate was written by Tara Gent and is in the category Health at GoPetition.