THE HON JULIE COLLINS MP
ACTING SHADOW MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND MEDICARE
SHADOW MINISTER FOR AGEING AND MENTAL HEALTH
MEMBER FOR FRANKLIN
LOCAL PATIENTS STILL LEFT IN LURCH TO ACCESS MEDICINAL CANNABIS
Reports today that local patients are still caught up in a bureaucratic mess to access medicinal cannabis show that Turnbull can’t paper over his appalling record this issue.
Allowing exports of medicinal cannabis is one thing. Helping local patients to access relief they need is another – and the Turnbull Government is failing.
Today’s reports show that local patients are being forced to overcome barrier after barrier which is denying them timely relief.
This Government has done nothing but attack dying and very ill people accessing medicinal cannabis.
In June, the Senate voted to disallow the Government’s restrictions on access to medicinal cannabis under Category A of the Special Access Scheme- in recognition that access to Category A has always been tightly restricted to people with a terminal illness – and only if it is clinically appropriate.
This should have resolved this issue. Terminally ill patients should have had easier access to a prescribed therapy that can ease their suffering.
But what we have seen from this Government in the months since June is an attempt to block the Parliament’s will, and to continue deny relief to dying Australians.
Turnbull continues to hide behind technicalities and dying Australians continue to miss out.
He does not deserve any pat on the back when local patients continue to be denied safe and timely access to medicinal cannabis across Australia.
FRIDAY, 5 JANUARY 2018