A Shorten Labor Government will commit $15 million to fund the Northern Territory’s first PET scanner and associated equipment at the Alan Walker Cancer Centre.
The NT is the only Australian state or territory without a PET scanner, forcing Territorians with cancer to travel interstate for this potentially lifesaving treatment.
A cancer diagnosis is already a highly stressful time for patients, without the added burden and expense of having to travel across the country, leaving friends and family behind, for treatment.
We know from bitter experience the further patients are required to travel, the lower are their chances of attending, and the lower the chances of being successfully treated.
Unlike the CLP, which has been promising to provide a PET scanner for six years now, a Shorten Labor Government will deliver this long overdue investment in the health of Territorians.
Labor’s investment will fund a PET Scanner, and ongoing funding for, along with a cyclotron, the medical equipment that makes radioactive tracers which are used for scans to detect various cancers.
This investment will make Darwin a hub for cancer treatment in the north of Australia and potentially even for our nearest Asian neighbours.
This investment will confirm, yet again, that only Labor delivers the health care investment needed by the people of the Northern Territory.
It was Labor that built the Alan Walker Cancer Care Centre which has already improved patient outcomes by allowing people to be treated in the Territory.
This has resulted in fewer people being forced to travel interstate, ensuring Territorians have the same levels of care and treatment that patients in other states are entitled to.
By contrast, the debacle of the long delayed Palmerston Hospital confirms the CLP is unable to deliver the health care the people of the Northern Territory need.
Labor’s investment highlights once again that only Labor believes in Medicare and only Labor will deliver the healthcare and health infrastructure Territorians need.