Transcript of Interview on The Circle, Channel 10

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PDF printable version of Transcript of Interview on The Circle, Channel 10 - Federal Budget, Mental Health, PBS, Dental (PDF 26 KB)

13 May 2011

Topics: Federal Budget, Mental Health, PBS, Dental

Yumi Stynes: Now the Federal Government delivered a big boost to mental health services in this week's Budget. What else can we expect? To tell us more please welcome the Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon.

Now can you explain first of all what you've changed with mental health?

Nicola Roxon: Well this is a really big boost to mental health and it's about making sure that people can get the care that they need.

We know that a lot of people with mental health issues really fall through the gaps of the current health system, particularly young people, so a big boost to the headspace services.

The Prime Minister and I were out talking with some young people at the Sunshine headspace service this morning, and that was really good. Very difficult situations. And it was a place that people could go and get the help that they needed.

There's going to be 90 of those now across the country. There's going to be more help for young children and their families if developmental problems are brewing. But also an area that's been neglected as well - the older person, the adult that might have a severe or persistent illness - they get pushed around between six or seven different services.

Yumi Stynes: Does that include, Nicola, does that include depression?

Nicola Roxon: It does. But it would need to be at the very severe end of depression. We've obviously got a lot of money into GPs and psychologists and others for some of the milder disorders.

But the severe schizophrenic or bipolar disorder, an adult going in and out of emergency departments - and in and out of stable accommodation - we've put a serious amount of money into providing more coordinated services.

So if you're the carer, a parent, if you're the emergency department doctor, you actually know where to go to help a person, to coordinate a whole range of things. Not just the medical services but the other services that support someone in their life when they've got severe problems. So it's a very comprehensive across life package aimed at making sure people can't fall between the gaps.

Peter Rowsthorn: So there will be some funding heading towards carers?

Nicola Roxon: No, it's not a direct change to carers, because we already have extensive support for carers. What it does do is actually provide a better avenue for carers to be able to find out how services can be provided that they're not the person all the time that is relied upon if there's an emergency situation if someone's accommodation had to be, sort of, to talk to the housing adviser.

Peter Rowsthorn:Okay, so it's... [Nicola Roxon: So it's not a direct payment to carers. But it does provide a different support for carers, particularly if there are a range of challenging issues...

Peter Rowsthorn: So you're trying to organise it and streamline it so it's simpler. It's more user friendly if you like.

Nicola Roxon: Yeah. And it's just been a bit that's fallen between hospitals, GPs, non-government organisations - there's a lot of church groups and Uniting Care and Wesley Mission who run really great support programs, but it's very difficult to get them all to talk to each other. And we know you have to provide some money to actually make those services coordinate properly so that they can be built around a person, not in these sort of silo that governments like to put things in some times.

Chrissie Swan: Speaking of money will there be any breaks for the incredible costs of prescription drugs, and all that sort of stuff.

Nicola Roxon: Yeah, we've got $600 million worth of new drugs as part of this Budget. In fact we did the sums the other day. Since I've been minister a mind-boggling $4 billion worth of new drugs have been put on the PBS. It is actually, it's a very expensive system, but it's a huge support for people. So we - in Australia we are the envy of the world that people can access most drugs at a very low cost.

There's always some that we can't…

Yumi Stynes: Yeah. There are a few notable ones that are missing. Erbitux is one which is used for late-stage bowel cancer.

Nicola Roxon: Yes. Erbitux wasn't considered for the Budget because there's still a couple of processes with our advisory boards. We let the experts assess if they're effective, if they're cost effective. We then still have to make a decision whether it's a priority for expenditure. So it'll be coming up in the next couple of months. It doesn't have to wait until the next Budget to be considered. But it's not one...

Yumi Stynes: Yeah. So… [indistinct] …bowel cancer has said that there's a few key drugs not listed that are crucial to some of their patients.

Nicola Roxon: Well it's one that's in the pipeline. We have a whole lot of different drugs that come through the pipeline. As I say we have hundreds of millions of dollars worth of drugs that get put on as they're available and approved throughout every year.

Yumi Stynes: Yeah.

Nicola Roxon: We do have to also make choices though as Cabinet sometimes, so one of the things we chose to do in this Budget was to make the bowel cancer screening program actually have funding in an ongoing way now for the future.

This is a really good program. It kept getting two years or four years of funding - and then risking falling off the edge of the cliff.

Yumi Stynes: Right.

Nicola Roxon: We've been able to fund that. And of course I think detecting early, so you don't actually have bowel cancer developing is obviously the key.

Yumi Stynes: So what you're describing is free tests for people in their 50s and 60s.

Nicola Roxon: That's right, yeah, 50, 55, and 65. We send out a little kit to people, if you're having one of those birthdays, to say look, this is worth doing. And we think that's - we've got to invest money at that front end, not only say what drugs do you make available for people when they already have cancer. And it's all a balance. We've been lucky that we've been able to prioritise a lot of health expenditure, even in these difficult financial times, but sometimes we do have to make choices between those investments.

Peter Rowsthorn: [Indistinct] talk about subsidising the dental area of health, because it's such a...

Nicola Roxon: A lot.

Peter Rowsthorn: I've got four kids. And it's just a money pit. It just keeps on coming.

Nicola Roxon: Yeah, it's expensive. Look, it's expensive, and I think when I was on last we had a lot of questions from viewers about dental care.

Yumi Stynes: Yeah, and again this time we asked them again.

Nicola Roxon: We've made a modest change in the Budget, which is actually some work force initiatives; because one of the problems is not having enough people therefore they're just being able to charge a lot of money. This is actually putting some money into an intern year for dentists, so when young dental students graduate, they can get supported to go and work in public dental where they can never employ enough people, and where those who have the least resources available to them and on the lowest incomes can get their teeth taken care of.

But we have agreed that this is an area where we need to do more work for next year's budget. We really did prioritise mental health. And I think everyone knows that was desperately needed. We've got a couple of big priorities for next year and the year after, which are dental care and aged care, all being built upon these big health reforms.

So I mean I'm very lucky. We've had four health reform budgets in a row while I've been Health Minister, and it's starting to really make a difference.

Yumi Stynes: Great, thank you for joining us today to talk about them. Please thank Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon.

Ends.