June 18, 2025 • 19 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, firstly, I would like to welcome our special guests
this morning, Health Minister Mark Butler, Minister, good morning to you,
Jon and Graham. Thanks for coming in today my pleasure.
We hopefully will have a lot of questions from our listeners.
Eight double two to three double o doubo is the
number to ring. Firstly, though we're a new term that started.
What's your major focus?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, our focus over the course of the next well
full three years, but particularly as we get going, we'll
be on implementing the promises we made to the Australian people.
And in my portfolios of health and aged care and
now also disabilities, there were many of them. Right at
the core is the promises we made around bulk billing,
to extend bulk billing support to all Australians, not just
(00:40):
those with a concession card. We want to get that
bulk billing rate back up to ninety percent. We've got
cheaper medicines policies that we'll be introducing into the Parliament
as soon as we get back to drop the co payment,
the maximum co payment people pay for their medicines from
the first of January. We've also frozen some prices for
(01:01):
pensioners for the rest of the decade. And we've also
got fifty more Medicare urgent care clinics we want to
roll out, added to the eighty seven that we opened
in the last term of parliament. So there's a lot
to do implementing the promises we made to the Australian
people at the election.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Now there are a lot of concerned FIVEAA listeners that
firned this program, saying they're facing increased pathology bills from
July one. Evidently the federal government is cutting three hundred
and fifty six million dollars from pathology services. What can
you say to those people.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, that's just not right. That is an incredibly misleading
position that is being put by the three very big
pathology companies. Very very big companies made billions of dollars
in profits during the pandemic through the pretty high payments
they receive for COVID testing, and are now seeking to
(01:52):
prop up those profits with what I think is an
incredibly misleading campaign. We've made some changes to vitamin testing
and also urine testing that were recommended to us by
the relevant clinicians. There was a task force that said
there's too much of that testing going on. Not only
is it an inefficient way to use tax payer money,
(02:12):
it's clinically not proper. If you look at the public
pathology companies, so Essay Pathology here in South Australia grame.
They have applauded the decision we've taken. They don't want
to see unnecessary pathology testing take place. But the big
profit making companies that make a whole lot of money
out of frankly unnecessary tests, they're trying to run this
(02:34):
campaign that there's been a cut. What we did was
we actually reintroduced indexation, so increases to pathology payments for
the first time in twenty five years. So they're getting
more money from us from the last budget.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Not less.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
This misleading campaign is an incredibly irresponsible thing that the
three big pathology companies are doing, and it will have consequences.
I am taking advice that if they are putting in
place co payments in an area which is now over
ninety nine percent bulk build on the back of a
misleading campaign, I'm telling those three companies there will be
(03:11):
very serious consequences.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
We have a text from Russell who wants to know
is the blunt test with prostate tests going to be
free well again.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Also, we have been receiving new guidelines about the best
way to test for prostate cancer. As many of your
listeners will know, certainly the male listeners, this is a
difficult area because testing for prostate cancer can have in
itself negative consequences if it's a false positive. So we're
(03:42):
constantly getting updated clinical advice about the best way in
which to test for the most common cancer. Prostate cancer
is the most common cancer for men, and the Prostate
Cancer Foundation, which is the peak body in this area,
brings together clinicians, the patient groups. Currently have some draft
clinical guidelines that are out for comment right now. I
(04:04):
expect that they will be finalized in the second half
of this year. This is the first time we've updated
those guidelines since I think twenty sixteen. We funded them
to do that work and I want to make sure
that Australian men have access to the best up to
date clinical advice and support in an area that is
a very big issue for Australia's men.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Thanks Erk Minister. We have Wendy on the line. Wen
do you have a question for the Health Ministry.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yeah, it's nice talking to you both. Last year, I
was advised by my doctor to have an RSB injection,
which I paid over three hundred and thirty eight dollars for.
I didn't mind paying for it because I thought prevention
is better than the illness. Now, no one can tell
me if I need another one this year. Chemists can't
(04:50):
tell me. My own doctor can't tell me because all
they know is about the young babies that missed out
on it from their mothers and the mothers in their
last time of pregnancy to get it. So no one
can tell me if I need if it's a one
off injection, or I need it annually every year.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Well, you need to ask you your GP about that, Wendy.
RSV is a very serious illness. It's one of the
big three respiratory illnesses. As I think you said, We've
just put an RSV maternal vaccine for pregnant mums onto
the national imminization program. That's the first one we've ever had.
It started in February. Already well over sixty thousand pregnant
(05:31):
women have taken that vaccine and those antibodies then flow
through to the fetus and protect their beautiful newborn baby
for those crucial few months.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Of their life. I've also, though, been.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Really interested to make sure that some of the companies
who are developing vaccines for RSV are putting their vaccines
forward for excuse me, for consideration for those vaccines to
be added for older Australians, so Australians over the age
of sixty five, and I expect that work to unfold
over the course of this year.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Thank you for you called Wendy now a minister. The
government's vape scheme, really it's a disaster. You know, only
one in every seventeen hundred practices selling vopes legally. Only
about seven hundred of Australia's nine hundred pharmacies participate. They
say they're averaging one legal sale every three days. You've
(06:25):
gone on record of saying vaping is declining, but there
are obvious flaws in the scheme.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Well, I don't agree with your characterization, Graham. I think
this is doing the job I wanted to do, first
of all, which was to take the vapes out of
the hands of our kids. The first thing I did
was put in place and import restriction so to stop
these things coming into the country in the first place.
They were flooding into the country under the old regime
(06:52):
and since that time, our hard working border force officials
have seized almost ten million of these things.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
At the border.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
We also they need to shut down the sale of
those vapes on the ground out of retail premises. So
vape stores have shut. Every one of the seven or
eight vapes stores that were opening my electorate in hind
Marsh is now shut. But I do recognize that some
retail premises, so convenience stores tobacc in us, are still
selling vapes against the law and they need to be
(07:21):
brought to court and prosecuted for that. Now, in your
introduction you were talking about the terrific work Andrew Markles
is doing here in South Australia. It is the leading
work in the country to crack down on a list
at tobacco and the illegal sale of vapes. Remember this
is bankrolling organized crime at the end of the day,
these are the organizations that are controlling this market. So
(07:43):
we need to do more on enforcement. I never said
this was easy. You know, we're battling big tobacco on
the one hand and organized crime.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
On the other. This is a tough fight.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
But I will say and I will reassure your listeners
who are worried about their kids or their grandkids doing
this stuff. The research that we've got, very credible research
shows that vaping rates among very young Australians so here
in South Australia, teenagers essentially are down thirty percent already.
School suspensions as a result of vaping in South Australia
(08:14):
have halved over the last twelve months. Principles and teachers
were telling us this was the number one behavioral issue
in their schools. Suspensions have halved, and vaping rates among
older adults, so sort of mid twenties and up, they've
halved as well. So we are making a difference taking
these vapes out of the hands of our kids. But look,
I don't pretend this was ever going to be easy.
(08:35):
I said that at the time we embarked upon this.
We have to keep going. This is bankrolling. Not only
is it hurting the health of our young Australians, this
is bankrolling the work of organized crime. Every time you
buy a pack of illicit cigarettes, every time you buy
an illegal vape, you are contributing money to organized criminal
gains to bankroll their drug trafficking, their sex tracking activities.
(08:57):
And we just have to remember that.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
We're speaking with Health Minister Mark Butlett in the studio.
If you have a question, give us a call now
eight double two three double oh double oh. We have
Health Minister Mark Butler in the studio. If you have
a question for the Minister, he's only too happy to
take your call. Eight double two to three double o
double oh. Something minister. We were talking about the mental health.
It's a major issue, there's no question about that in
(09:21):
Australia at the moment. The statistics are revealing that it's growing,
particularly among young people. It's putting a huge burden on
the public health system. What are your steps to I
know it's not something that's going to be overcome overnight.
What can you do in the mental health arena?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Well, let me talk about young people. I mean, mental
health is unique really in health. Most health issues tend
to emerge in middle age and older, but mental health
tends to emerge when you're young. So if you're going
to have a mental illness at any point in your lifetime,
it probably will have emerged before you're twenty five. Two
thirds will emerge before twenty one, and three quarter of
(10:00):
mental health issues will already have hit by the time
someone turns twenty five. So what we've learned over the
last couple of decades is you've got to build mental
health services that young people feel comfortable going to. I mean,
when I was young, which admittedly is a long time ago,
if you had a mental health issue, you were expected
to go to mum and dad's GP if you're a
teenager with Unsurprisingly, people didn't do that. So we've been
(10:24):
busy really building youth mental health services like Headspace and
a lot online, a lot of digital services, but they're
becoming overwhelmed because of that increase you talk about in
mental distress among young people generally, particularly frankly, younger girls
and women. So at the last election campaign we promised
(10:46):
to do a couple of things. One expand the existing
services we have, but also introduce new services. They address
what the former Australian of the Year Pat mcgory calls
the missing middle, so services for people or young people
who have quite complex needs that frankly are a bit
beyond those Headspace services or GPS or psychologists to look after,
(11:09):
but aren't yet quite as extreme or severe that they
would be admitted to a hospital. So we're going to
build more of these missing middle services. We put a
lot of money into that. The election campaign, we'll be
working on that, but we also want to get sort
of upstream to try and work out why is there
such a high level of mental distress among our young
people now. And we're pretty confident, although the research is
(11:31):
still coming, and we're pretty confident social media is playing
a role. And that's why, frankly, the rest of the
world is watching what we are doing here in Australia
to ban the use of social media among kids under sixteen.
Like everyone around the world is watching this, particularly the
English speaking world, the US, Canada, UK Island, New Zealand.
They're experiencing exactly the same levels of mental distress among
(11:54):
their young people and everyone is now starting to point
the finger at phones and social media. So what we've
done to take phones out of schools again, the rest
of the world is looking at that. When I talk
to Principles, that has changed school life almost overnight. Kids
are playing together again, they're talking to each other again,
their learning behavior has improved, all because of us taking
(12:17):
those phones out of their hands. And we're very confident
that that social media band that the big tech companies
are going to fight tooth and nail, but putting in
place that social media ban is going to be a
really important way to improve the mental health of our
young people. So yes, we'll roll out new services, but
we've also got to start to explore why are young
Australians today experiencing such higher levels of mental distress than
(12:42):
seems to have been the case ten twenty thirty, forty
years ago.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
We have Health Minister Mark Butler in the studio. If
you have a question of the Minister, give us a
call right now. Eight double two three doublo doublow Minister.
From the text line, Hi, Graham, what can the Minister
do to make sure you get an appointment at a
GP when a person is unwell, not a week or
two later. Also, what can the Minister do to make
sure gps take on more new patients when needed when
(13:07):
you need a GP in your area. I've called some
gps and they say they're not taking new patients.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
You know, that's Minister. That's something that we hear all
too often. Yeah, we don't have enough gps. I think
is really clear. I think I might have talked to
you about this before, Graham, that you know not too
long ago, about one in two medical graduates would have
chosen to become a GP. That's thirty forty years ago.
Half of the medical school graduates went into general practice.
(13:32):
Now it's down to about one in seven and the
other six will go into surgery or anesthetics or psychiatry
or something. So we've got to build that general practice workforce.
This year we have more young doctors training to be
gps than at any time in our history, so we
have turned that around. Last year was a record. This
year is another record. We want to grow that again.
(13:52):
So we've got more funding in this scheme to train
more young Australians as gps, because we know a lot
of our gps are in the price of retiring. We've
got to replace them. But also we're trying to find
ways in the meantime to bring gps in from overseas,
particularly from countries where we have high levels of confidence
in their training, So the UK, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada,
(14:14):
those sorts of countries, we're fast tracking their ability to
come in and frankly fill the gaps we have in
the system. In the meantime though, we've got to build
other systems. Those urgent care clinics I talked about. They're
open seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five
days a year, already seen one and a half million
patients since we started opening them a couple of years ago,
(14:35):
and every single person is built. In addition, we'll be
introducing next year a new service called one eight hundred
Medicare where you can get again a free nurse triage
service and potentially telehealth as well. So the nurse after
six pm, if he or she probably she thinks you
need to see a GP, you'll be clicked over to
(14:57):
a telehealth system funded by Medicare, Quality assured by Medicare
to take some of that pressure off General practice.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Ross from Valley View is called in Ross go ahead,
Oh hello both ye.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
Yes. My wife's got dementia and she's been in the
Mudbury Hospital for seven weeks now, and she had actually
gone in for an infection and they cured that. But
because she was unwill at the time, I was told
(15:33):
that two doctors and the social worker has said I
couldn't take her home because it needed too people to
look after her, and so they put us under say Cat. Now,
we had a say Cat meeting on the eleventh a jurne.
Now what happened was my wife screamed, when because I
helped change, I go every day. I try and get
(15:53):
there between nine point thirty ten o'clock or subtimes ten
thirty and I stay sometimes to a eight thirty at night. Now,
going through the tribunal, I'm now looks as I'm going
to lose her. The public advocate has made the guardian
(16:14):
to make all her lifestyle decisions to her son who
lives in Kulonga, who has mental health problems, and had
a care with him when they had the meeting. Now
what happens there? And because I had an advance care
(16:37):
directive and I thought it was right, but the person
that's the decision maker said no, it's not because it
was signed by a nurse at our GP clinic. But
I'd taken it to Tony Zappier's office and he said
everything was correct, and he had photo copied five copies.
(17:01):
And now they say it's not correct. So I've what's
my power of attorney?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Well, Ross, I don't have the circumstances obviously of your
case of is that that sounds like it must have
been incredibly distressing for you. Those last seven weeks where
your lovely wife has been in hospital. We might get
some details from you and we can contact you offline
and see whether we can help you through this.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Thanks for you called Ross. Yes, we'll put you back
to my producer Patrick. Just one final question. We're just
about to run over time, but I have to mention this,
the IVF system. Can faith be restored in IVF Monish
IVF two horrific incidents. Now a lot of people who
are on the IVF program considering it are wondering what
shall I do.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Well, My third beautiful child is an IVF baby, and
I know that the depth of trust that families put
in IVF companies often feels like you get a miracle
baby felt like that to my wife and I And
you know, I think what's happened with Monash, with not
one case, but two cases going so awry, has really
(18:11):
hurt the confidence that Australian families have in what has
been one of the best systems in the world, delivering
twenty thousand babies every year. So when the Health ministers
and I met on Friday in Melbourne, we decided to
put in place a national independent accreditation system for IVF companies.
The fact is until now they've essentially been self regulating,
(18:33):
and we think we need to inject some confidence and
independence and transparency into that system. We'll be doing that
as a matter of priority, and we'll be looking at
other ideas about introducing better national standards around the regulation here.
We've got to get confidence back into the system. I
know families have either had an IVF baby who are
thinking going through this are deeply worried about the media
(18:56):
coverage of these two really devastating cases. Chris Pickton here,
health ministers across the country are determined to get this
industry back on track.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Mark Butler, thanks so much for your time today. Appreciate it.
Thanks Greg, We've been speaking with Health Minister Mark Butler
five Double A Mornings with Graham Goodings.
Well, firstly, I would like to welcome our special guests
this morning, Health Minister Mark Butler, Minister, good morning to you,
Jon and Graham. Thanks for coming in today my pleasure.
We hopefully will have a lot of questions from our listeners.
Eight double two to three double o doubo is the
number to ring. Firstly, though we're a new term that started.
What's your major focus?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, our focus over the course of the next well
full three years, but particularly as we get going, we'll
be on implementing the promises we made to the Australian people.
And in my portfolios of health and aged care and
now also disabilities, there were many of them. Right at
the core is the promises we made around bulk billing,
to extend bulk billing support to all Australians, not just
(00:40):
those with a concession card. We want to get that
bulk billing rate back up to ninety percent. We've got
cheaper medicines policies that we'll be introducing into the Parliament
as soon as we get back to drop the co payment,
the maximum co payment people pay for their medicines from
the first of January. We've also frozen some prices for
(01:01):
pensioners for the rest of the decade. And we've also
got fifty more Medicare urgent care clinics we want to
roll out, added to the eighty seven that we opened
in the last term of parliament. So there's a lot
to do implementing the promises we made to the Australian
people at the election.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Now there are a lot of concerned FIVEAA listeners that
firned this program, saying they're facing increased pathology bills from
July one. Evidently the federal government is cutting three hundred
and fifty six million dollars from pathology services. What can
you say to those people.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, that's just not right. That is an incredibly misleading
position that is being put by the three very big
pathology companies. Very very big companies made billions of dollars
in profits during the pandemic through the pretty high payments
they receive for COVID testing, and are now seeking to
(01:52):
prop up those profits with what I think is an
incredibly misleading campaign. We've made some changes to vitamin testing
and also urine testing that were recommended to us by
the relevant clinicians. There was a task force that said
there's too much of that testing going on. Not only
is it an inefficient way to use tax payer money,
(02:12):
it's clinically not proper. If you look at the public
pathology companies, so Essay Pathology here in South Australia grame.
They have applauded the decision we've taken. They don't want
to see unnecessary pathology testing take place. But the big
profit making companies that make a whole lot of money
out of frankly unnecessary tests, they're trying to run this
(02:34):
campaign that there's been a cut. What we did was
we actually reintroduced indexation, so increases to pathology payments for
the first time in twenty five years. So they're getting
more money from us from the last budget.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Not less.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
This misleading campaign is an incredibly irresponsible thing that the
three big pathology companies are doing, and it will have consequences.
I am taking advice that if they are putting in
place co payments in an area which is now over
ninety nine percent bulk build on the back of a
misleading campaign, I'm telling those three companies there will be
(03:11):
very serious consequences.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
We have a text from Russell who wants to know
is the blunt test with prostate tests going to be
free well again.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Also, we have been receiving new guidelines about the best
way to test for prostate cancer. As many of your
listeners will know, certainly the male listeners, this is a
difficult area because testing for prostate cancer can have in
itself negative consequences if it's a false positive. So we're
(03:42):
constantly getting updated clinical advice about the best way in
which to test for the most common cancer. Prostate cancer
is the most common cancer for men, and the Prostate
Cancer Foundation, which is the peak body in this area,
brings together clinicians, the patient groups. Currently have some draft
clinical guidelines that are out for comment right now. I
(04:04):
expect that they will be finalized in the second half
of this year. This is the first time we've updated
those guidelines since I think twenty sixteen. We funded them
to do that work and I want to make sure
that Australian men have access to the best up to
date clinical advice and support in an area that is
a very big issue for Australia's men.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Thanks Erk Minister. We have Wendy on the line. Wen
do you have a question for the Health Ministry.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yeah, it's nice talking to you both. Last year, I
was advised by my doctor to have an RSB injection,
which I paid over three hundred and thirty eight dollars for.
I didn't mind paying for it because I thought prevention
is better than the illness. Now, no one can tell
me if I need another one this year. Chemists can't
(04:50):
tell me. My own doctor can't tell me because all
they know is about the young babies that missed out
on it from their mothers and the mothers in their
last time of pregnancy to get it. So no one
can tell me if I need if it's a one
off injection, or I need it annually every year.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Well, you need to ask you your GP about that, Wendy.
RSV is a very serious illness. It's one of the
big three respiratory illnesses. As I think you said, We've
just put an RSV maternal vaccine for pregnant mums onto
the national imminization program. That's the first one we've ever had.
It started in February. Already well over sixty thousand pregnant
(05:31):
women have taken that vaccine and those antibodies then flow
through to the fetus and protect their beautiful newborn baby
for those crucial few months.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Of their life. I've also, though, been.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Really interested to make sure that some of the companies
who are developing vaccines for RSV are putting their vaccines
forward for excuse me, for consideration for those vaccines to
be added for older Australians, so Australians over the age
of sixty five, and I expect that work to unfold
over the course of this year.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Thank you for you called Wendy now a minister. The
government's vape scheme, really it's a disaster. You know, only
one in every seventeen hundred practices selling vopes legally. Only
about seven hundred of Australia's nine hundred pharmacies participate. They
say they're averaging one legal sale every three days. You've
(06:25):
gone on record of saying vaping is declining, but there
are obvious flaws in the scheme.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Well, I don't agree with your characterization, Graham. I think
this is doing the job I wanted to do, first
of all, which was to take the vapes out of
the hands of our kids. The first thing I did
was put in place and import restriction so to stop
these things coming into the country in the first place.
They were flooding into the country under the old regime
(06:52):
and since that time, our hard working border force officials
have seized almost ten million of these things.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
At the border.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
We also they need to shut down the sale of
those vapes on the ground out of retail premises. So
vape stores have shut. Every one of the seven or
eight vapes stores that were opening my electorate in hind
Marsh is now shut. But I do recognize that some
retail premises, so convenience stores tobacc in us, are still
selling vapes against the law and they need to be
(07:21):
brought to court and prosecuted for that. Now, in your
introduction you were talking about the terrific work Andrew Markles
is doing here in South Australia. It is the leading
work in the country to crack down on a list
at tobacco and the illegal sale of vapes. Remember this
is bankrolling organized crime at the end of the day,
these are the organizations that are controlling this market. So
(07:43):
we need to do more on enforcement. I never said
this was easy. You know, we're battling big tobacco on
the one hand and organized crime.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
On the other. This is a tough fight.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
But I will say and I will reassure your listeners
who are worried about their kids or their grandkids doing
this stuff. The research that we've got, very credible research
shows that vaping rates among very young Australians so here
in South Australia, teenagers essentially are down thirty percent already.
School suspensions as a result of vaping in South Australia
(08:14):
have halved over the last twelve months. Principles and teachers
were telling us this was the number one behavioral issue
in their schools. Suspensions have halved, and vaping rates among
older adults, so sort of mid twenties and up, they've
halved as well. So we are making a difference taking
these vapes out of the hands of our kids. But look,
I don't pretend this was ever going to be easy.
(08:35):
I said that at the time we embarked upon this.
We have to keep going. This is bankrolling. Not only
is it hurting the health of our young Australians, this
is bankrolling the work of organized crime. Every time you
buy a pack of illicit cigarettes, every time you buy
an illegal vape, you are contributing money to organized criminal
gains to bankroll their drug trafficking, their sex tracking activities.
(08:57):
And we just have to remember that.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
We're speaking with Health Minister Mark Butlett in the studio.
If you have a question, give us a call now
eight double two three double oh double oh. We have
Health Minister Mark Butler in the studio. If you have
a question for the Minister, he's only too happy to
take your call. Eight double two to three double o
double oh. Something minister. We were talking about the mental health.
It's a major issue, there's no question about that in
(09:21):
Australia at the moment. The statistics are revealing that it's growing,
particularly among young people. It's putting a huge burden on
the public health system. What are your steps to I
know it's not something that's going to be overcome overnight.
What can you do in the mental health arena?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Well, let me talk about young people. I mean, mental
health is unique really in health. Most health issues tend
to emerge in middle age and older, but mental health
tends to emerge when you're young. So if you're going
to have a mental illness at any point in your lifetime,
it probably will have emerged before you're twenty five. Two
thirds will emerge before twenty one, and three quarter of
(10:00):
mental health issues will already have hit by the time
someone turns twenty five. So what we've learned over the
last couple of decades is you've got to build mental
health services that young people feel comfortable going to. I mean,
when I was young, which admittedly is a long time ago,
if you had a mental health issue, you were expected
to go to mum and dad's GP if you're a
teenager with Unsurprisingly, people didn't do that. So we've been
(10:24):
busy really building youth mental health services like Headspace and
a lot online, a lot of digital services, but they're
becoming overwhelmed because of that increase you talk about in
mental distress among young people generally, particularly frankly, younger girls
and women. So at the last election campaign we promised
(10:46):
to do a couple of things. One expand the existing
services we have, but also introduce new services. They address
what the former Australian of the Year Pat mcgory calls
the missing middle, so services for people or young people
who have quite complex needs that frankly are a bit
beyond those Headspace services or GPS or psychologists to look after,
(11:09):
but aren't yet quite as extreme or severe that they
would be admitted to a hospital. So we're going to
build more of these missing middle services. We put a
lot of money into that. The election campaign, we'll be
working on that, but we also want to get sort
of upstream to try and work out why is there
such a high level of mental distress among our young
people now. And we're pretty confident, although the research is
(11:31):
still coming, and we're pretty confident social media is playing
a role. And that's why, frankly, the rest of the
world is watching what we are doing here in Australia
to ban the use of social media among kids under sixteen.
Like everyone around the world is watching this, particularly the
English speaking world, the US, Canada, UK Island, New Zealand.
They're experiencing exactly the same levels of mental distress among
(11:54):
their young people and everyone is now starting to point
the finger at phones and social media. So what we've
done to take phones out of schools again, the rest
of the world is looking at that. When I talk
to Principles, that has changed school life almost overnight. Kids
are playing together again, they're talking to each other again,
their learning behavior has improved, all because of us taking
(12:17):
those phones out of their hands. And we're very confident
that that social media band that the big tech companies
are going to fight tooth and nail, but putting in
place that social media ban is going to be a
really important way to improve the mental health of our
young people. So yes, we'll roll out new services, but
we've also got to start to explore why are young
Australians today experiencing such higher levels of mental distress than
(12:42):
seems to have been the case ten twenty thirty, forty
years ago.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
We have Health Minister Mark Butler in the studio. If
you have a question of the Minister, give us a
call right now. Eight double two three doublo doublow Minister.
From the text line, Hi, Graham, what can the Minister
do to make sure you get an appointment at a
GP when a person is unwell, not a week or
two later. Also, what can the Minister do to make
sure gps take on more new patients when needed when
(13:07):
you need a GP in your area. I've called some
gps and they say they're not taking new patients.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
You know, that's Minister. That's something that we hear all
too often. Yeah, we don't have enough gps. I think
is really clear. I think I might have talked to
you about this before, Graham, that you know not too
long ago, about one in two medical graduates would have
chosen to become a GP. That's thirty forty years ago.
Half of the medical school graduates went into general practice.
(13:32):
Now it's down to about one in seven and the
other six will go into surgery or anesthetics or psychiatry
or something. So we've got to build that general practice workforce.
This year we have more young doctors training to be
gps than at any time in our history, so we
have turned that around. Last year was a record. This
year is another record. We want to grow that again.
(13:52):
So we've got more funding in this scheme to train
more young Australians as gps, because we know a lot
of our gps are in the price of retiring. We've
got to replace them. But also we're trying to find
ways in the meantime to bring gps in from overseas,
particularly from countries where we have high levels of confidence
in their training, So the UK, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada,
(14:14):
those sorts of countries, we're fast tracking their ability to
come in and frankly fill the gaps we have in
the system. In the meantime though, we've got to build
other systems. Those urgent care clinics I talked about. They're
open seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five
days a year, already seen one and a half million
patients since we started opening them a couple of years ago,
(14:35):
and every single person is built. In addition, we'll be
introducing next year a new service called one eight hundred
Medicare where you can get again a free nurse triage
service and potentially telehealth as well. So the nurse after
six pm, if he or she probably she thinks you
need to see a GP, you'll be clicked over to
(14:57):
a telehealth system funded by Medicare, Quality assured by Medicare
to take some of that pressure off General practice.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Ross from Valley View is called in Ross go ahead,
Oh hello both ye.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
Yes. My wife's got dementia and she's been in the
Mudbury Hospital for seven weeks now, and she had actually
gone in for an infection and they cured that. But
because she was unwill at the time, I was told
(15:33):
that two doctors and the social worker has said I
couldn't take her home because it needed too people to
look after her, and so they put us under say Cat. Now,
we had a say Cat meeting on the eleventh a jurne.
Now what happened was my wife screamed, when because I
helped change, I go every day. I try and get
(15:53):
there between nine point thirty ten o'clock or subtimes ten
thirty and I stay sometimes to a eight thirty at night. Now,
going through the tribunal, I'm now looks as I'm going
to lose her. The public advocate has made the guardian
(16:14):
to make all her lifestyle decisions to her son who
lives in Kulonga, who has mental health problems, and had
a care with him when they had the meeting. Now
what happens there? And because I had an advance care
(16:37):
directive and I thought it was right, but the person
that's the decision maker said no, it's not because it
was signed by a nurse at our GP clinic. But
I'd taken it to Tony Zappier's office and he said
everything was correct, and he had photo copied five copies.
(17:01):
And now they say it's not correct. So I've what's
my power of attorney?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Well, Ross, I don't have the circumstances obviously of your
case of is that that sounds like it must have
been incredibly distressing for you. Those last seven weeks where
your lovely wife has been in hospital. We might get
some details from you and we can contact you offline
and see whether we can help you through this.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Thanks for you called Ross. Yes, we'll put you back
to my producer Patrick. Just one final question. We're just
about to run over time, but I have to mention this,
the IVF system. Can faith be restored in IVF Monish
IVF two horrific incidents. Now a lot of people who
are on the IVF program considering it are wondering what
shall I do.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Well, My third beautiful child is an IVF baby, and
I know that the depth of trust that families put
in IVF companies often feels like you get a miracle
baby felt like that to my wife and I And
you know, I think what's happened with Monash, with not
one case, but two cases going so awry, has really
(18:11):
hurt the confidence that Australian families have in what has
been one of the best systems in the world, delivering
twenty thousand babies every year. So when the Health ministers
and I met on Friday in Melbourne, we decided to
put in place a national independent accreditation system for IVF companies.
The fact is until now they've essentially been self regulating,
(18:33):
and we think we need to inject some confidence and
independence and transparency into that system. We'll be doing that
as a matter of priority, and we'll be looking at
other ideas about introducing better national standards around the regulation here.
We've got to get confidence back into the system. I
know families have either had an IVF baby who are
thinking going through this are deeply worried about the media
(18:56):
coverage of these two really devastating cases. Chris Pickton here,
health ministers across the country are determined to get this
industry back on track.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Mark Butler, thanks so much for your time today. Appreciate it.
Thanks Greg, We've been speaking with Health Minister Mark Butler
five Double A Mornings with Graham Goodings.
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