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PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES

HANSARD

Ms SHING Eastern Victoria

MEMBERS STATEMENTS

Men’s Health Week

Wednesday 17th June 2020

Ms SHING (Eastern Victoria) (09:58): This week is Men’s Health Week, and I want to make a few comments that I hope will draw attention to the importance of men and those who love them and care about them taking care good care of their physical health and their wellbeing. I know from very personal experience, having lost my brother Patrick to prostate cancer at the age of 42 after he was first diagnosed at 39, that it is all too easy for men to deny the changes that they may see or notice in their own bodies and to fail to seek attention, treatment, diagnosis and support. And too often the consequences can be, as they were with my late brother Patrick’s situation, fatal.

I would also urge people not just to make sure they are aware of changes to their bodies and that anyone with a prostate out there does take care to make sure that there are regular tests that take place and ongoing care and attention, should that be required, but also that people look after their mental health and wellbeing.

We know that men are over-represented in the figures around suicide. We know that men aged between 19 and 45 are by far the largest cohort of people who take their own lives, and we know that more has to be done to equip the men in our lives with the resources, the care, the support and the tools that they need to get help and assistance for physical challenges, for mental disease and for ongoing support to save lives. Please take care out there—not just this week but every week.