Purple hues to beat the cancer blues

Lismore MP Janelle Saffin’s weekly column goes purple ahead of Relay for Life

GET PURPLE: From left: John Dawson, Janelle Saffin MP, Leanne Thompson, Carmel Cook and Ronny Susanto. Photo: Marie Cook

MY Lismore electorate office on the corner of Conway and Carrington streets will join other local businesses in turning Lismore and our villages purple during ‘Purple Week’ from Monday, February 17.

Senior electorate officer Carmel Cook, known for her distinctive purple hair, is ready made for this novel way of counting down to the major event – the Lismore and Villages Relay for Life – at Southern Cross University on March 28-29, 2020.

The relay is very special to Carmel as she is a cancer survivor since 1999 and she previously raised funds for the PET scanner at the Lismore cancer care and haematology unit by shaving off those purple locks.

We donned some purple clothing when volunteer chairwoman of the Lismore and Villages Relay for Life committee Leanne Thompson popped in with a ‘Purple Week’ kit for our front counter.

I encourage local businesses to participate ‘Purple Week’, which marks the six-week countdown to what has become a popular community awareness and fundraising event hosted by Leanne and her volunteers to benefit the Cancer Council NSW.

This year’s festival-style event at SCU’s Lismore campus in Military Road, East Lismore, will feature live music, entertainment, family and children activities, food trucks, and moving ceremonies to ‘Celebrate, Remember and Fightback’ against cancer.

I congratulate the more than 40 Lismore businesses which are participating in ‘Purple Week’ and the relay itself.

If you want to know more about the Lismore and Villages Relay for Life visit www.cancercouncil.org.au/lismorerelay

Action on denture wait times

In other health-related news, late last year in Parliament I asked a question on notice of NSW Minister for Health and Medical Research Brad Hazzard about what could be done to reduce waiting times at the public denture clinic in Goonellabah.

This followed some Lismore constituents telling me they had been advised that they had to wait for up to two years to have dentures fitted due to a blowout in the waiting list.

Minister Hazzard has now responded: “Public dental services are provided according to criteria that prioritises emergency situations, as well as patient groups in most need and at highest risk of disease.

“I am advised that a new in-house dental prosthetist has recently been employed to provide additional dentures services to the Goonellabah and Casino areas,” the Minister answered.

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