Minister for Health and Aged Care, press conference - 12 December 2024

MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE: Thank you for coming out for this really exciting announcement. I'm joined here by Arabella, who runs the Gidget Foundation, and by Marcelle, who's going to talk about her lived experience.
 
Becoming a parent is one of the most rewarding and important things that you do in your life. Watching your children grow and turn into hopefully contributing adults is an utter joy. It's such an intrinsic part of being a human being. But becoming an expectant and a new parent, although it can be a joyous moment and part of your life, can also be incredibly overwhelming and at times, almost terrifying, such is the level of responsibility that you have. There's extraordinary pressure on parents, particularly expectant or new mums, to be able to do this easily and to revel in the joy of it and taper over, sometimes, some of the real pressures involved in being an expectant or a new mum or a new dad. We know there's still shame, and stigma associated with being a new parent or an expectant parent, and that means that often that can compound the anxiety even the depression that people feel around this seminal part of their lives. One in five mums experience perinatal anxiety or depression, and about one in 10 expectant or new dads experience the same symptoms. This is something we've known for a long time in Australia, and for many years, we've been working to screen new and expectant parents to teach them about the symptoms they should be watching out for. If they do develop anxiety or depression to be able to give them supports there are a range of terrific organisations, as well as government services, that have sprung up over the years to provide that support to mums and to dads.  
One of the leading organisations is the Gidget Foundation. They have been delivering extraordinary support to mums and dads across Australia for almost a quarter of a century. Like so many of these foundations in health, in mental health, it's a foundation that grew out of tragedy and wanted to use that experience for the benefit of other Australians. It's a wonderful story we hear so much in Australia. The track record that the Gidget Foundation has over those years in providing targeted, really sensitive support to expectant, and new mums and dads who are going through periods of anxiety and depression, is exactly why the Albanese Government committed $26 million to support the Gidget Foundation to open 12 Perinatal Mental Health Centres across Australia.
 
Earlier this year, I announced locations for six of those centres, and they're up and running right now. Providing support for people. I want to stress that this support is free of charge. This is such an important part of our approach to providing better, affordable, accessible healthcare to Australians. We're in one of the Medicare Mental Health Centres that's delivered by Sonder here in the northern suburbs, Elizabeth, free of charge. It’s providing support for people who need better mental health care than they're able to access in other parts of the community. We're around the corner from one of our Urgent Care Clinics. One of 86 that is open. Providing a million Australians over the last 18 months with really top-quality urgent care, again, completely free of charge. These Perinatal Mental Health Centres that the Gidget Foundation is running across the country, are also free of charge. I'll ask Arabella in a moment to say a few words about the type of service that they provide to expect and the new mums and dads.
 
Today, I'm really delighted to announce an investment in South Australia. The investment in South Australia will be delivered in two locations which I'm sure Arabella will outline, the first in Elizabeth and the second in Murray Bridge, providing great support to expectant and new mums and dads here in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. We're also announcing a range of other investments around the country. The Prime Minister, along with Arabella, was able to announce the location in Perth, at Wanneroo in the northern suburbs of Perth.
 
This really is just part of our approach to strengthening Medicare, making good quality health and mental health support more accessible and more affordable for Australians, including in this case, new and expectant mums and dads. I really want to thank Arabella and the Gidget Foundation for the work you've been doing for 23 years, but for bringing to government this really exciting proposal to provide free, accessible mental health support for expectant and new mums and dads. I'm terrifically excited to announce the investment in South Australia.
 
ARABELLA GIBSON, CEO OF GIDGET FOUNDATION: Thank you so much, Minister Butler. We at the Gidget Foundation are absolutely delighted by the support of the Albanese Government and their drive to ensure that Australian families have the support that they need to ensure that they are the best that they can be in terms of their wellbeing.
 
The Gidget Foundation began 23 years ago, as mentioned, through great tragedy. A beautiful girl whose nickname was Gidget, her real name was Louise. She was suffering from unrecognised postnatal depression and anxiety. She had a nine-month-old baby girl called Jasmine, and she and her husband Dave, had struggled to have a baby for a number of years, and they were finally successful in having their beautiful little girl. Gidget was a vibrant, dynamic, really, really fun, mum. She was an amazing woman. She always wore red; red lipstick, red nails, she even wore a red wedding dress to her wedding. Such was her vibrancy. When she was suffering from unrecognised postnatal depression, she didn't know how to seek help. The stigma of having a new baby and that not being everything that you think it's meant to be, and it becomes a challenge, is incredibly hard to manage and deal with, and sadly, Gidget took her own life.
 
However, born out of that incredible tragedy, we have an amazing legacy, because today we have 33 Gidget Houses, Australia wide, delivering services for expectant and new parents and potential parents who might be suffering from mental ill health in the perinatal period. Those services are delivered by 180 clinicians Australia wide, who are specialists in the perinatal field and those services are free of charge. We offer up to 20 sessions for mums and dads who might be suffering from perinatal mental ill health. We also have group therapy. We have our Gidget villages as well, which are online support groups, which bring villages together, which particularly have been harder to do so since the COVID times and as we progress as a society with the significant challenges that we face
 
At the Gidget Foundation, it is our job to ensure that we protect and support new families. We know that in South Australia alone, there are 37,000 births every year. We know that PNDA will affect 7,000 of those people, and we know that these services are so needed. To be able to open these two services, one at Murray Bridge and one at Elizabeth is absolutely brilliant, and it means that the people of South Australia will have the services that they need to support families to not only survive but to thrive.
 
Over the past four years, the investment from the Australian Government has returned, on average, a return of that investment to the economy of $108.9 Million. These services are significant, and they deliver and they save our country and our people. I'm delighted today to be joined by Marcelle Cooper. Marcelle is one of our Gidget Angels. She has her own story to tell and her own journey of perinatal mental ill health, and she's a former client at the Gidget Foundation. Please welcome Marcelle.
 
MARCELLE COOPER, GIDGET FOUNDATION ANGEL: Thank you, Arabella. Thank you, Minister for your time today. It's such a privilege to be here to represent all the parents that are going through or have been through perinatal depression and anxiety. I appreciate and value the opportunity to share my story with you to try and make it feel a little bit more real for those that haven't fortunately, been affected by it, but may know someone who has.
 
I first experienced perinatal depression anxiety when my daughter was around three months old. The first 12 weeks were bliss, but the story actually starts before then. We were trying to conceive for around five years. We experienced six pregnancies, six early miscarriages. We had two lots of twins, three singles, an ectopic pregnancy. It was an absolute roller coaster of emotions. There was the grief for one, the shame, the guilt, almost it's hard to explain the guilt. There was joy in the moments where we found out that we were pregnant, but then just the devastation at the loss each time that we faced another one.
 
We tried everything. We tried IVF, we had two egg collection rounds, we had four separate embryo transfers. We tried every alternative therapy under the sun that money could buy. We had investigative testing, genetic testing, hormone testing, every test you can think of. I've become well acquainted with needles over the years. But to be told that there was absolutely no reason why we couldn't have a healthy baby, that was something that we really struggled to come to terms with, because it was the why, why couldn't this happen?
 
After the five years as a couple, we were exhausted. We were absolutely exhausted. We felt broken, and we'd sort of come to a place of surrender and acceptance that perhaps parenthood or having a biological child of our own wasn't going to be part of our journey. We called it. We donated our final embryo to research. We got a kitten who we still refer to him as our first born. But we had 12, I'd say, blissful months carefree, fun filled months of just being a loving, happy couple again.
 
Then I found out I was pregnant, naturally. That came as a huge shock. I remember at the first scan, bursting into tears, and sonographer said, isn't this delightful? And I said, “no, I'm terrified.” This baby was there to stay. She hung on. We went to 12 weeks, and we had the harmony tests, and she was perfectly healthy. I had a very textbook pregnancy. I was very, very lucky, no issues, no crazy symptoms. At the end of November, in 2020 I gave birth to our beautiful, healthy baby girl, Sky. She's now just turned four. For the first 12 weeks, it was wonderful. I think my hormones were sort of peaking in this little newborn love bubble. Around the 12-week mark that all came crashing down. I hit my rock bottom. I started to feel like I wasn't enough, like I couldn't be the mother that this beautiful child needed me to be. I couldn't be the wife that my husband needed me to be. It was all during COVID times as well, which added another level of stress. I couldn't have family come out. I'm from New Zealand, I couldn't have family come and help. We were very isolated. I was taking her out for walks in the pram for my mental health, but worried that, oh, this is the second time I've been out of the house and I wonder if anyone's going to notice. It was a particularly pressurised situation that I was in.
 
I sort of battled, battled and battled for around three months, and around six months, I remember looking at Sky on the change table, and she was trying to engage with me and babble and giggling away and I felt nothing. There was nothing. I just looked at this child, and all I could think was, you poor, poor baby. You deserve so much better than me as your mother. That for me, felt like the moment. That was the moment that really shocked me, seeing this gorgeous baby and feeling nothing. But it was enough to shock me into thinking, right, I can't keep going through this rinse and repeat cycle over and over again on my own.
 
I called my GP, who was incredibly supportive, and the first thing she had mentioned was referring me to Gidget Foundation. I felt a sense of instant relief in the moment that she had explained what their services do and how they provide support. It was like, okay, I'm not alone in this anymore.
 
I started my Gidget sessions, and I really looked forward to them. I found that they very much grounded me. They gave me micro goals to work on. I would count every little win again. They gave me a toolkit that I felt like I was really armed with to start facing these feelings and until to work through them in a really productive way, and that would help not just me but my family, move forward through that. My anxiety still ebbed and flowed for another six months, but once I was on board with Gidget, I just felt like I could cope. Even on my darkest days and my most sleepless nights, I believed that I could cope. Whereas previously, I didn't believe that for a second.
 
There were times where I was struggling with insomnia, I was struggling with digestive issues, due to anxiety and severe weight loss. But around the 12 month mark, so around Sky's first birthday, I consulted with my GP again, and in consultation with my counsellor, and we decided that I needed sort of a multi-pronged approach to my health care plan. I ended up going on some anti-anxiety medication, and slowly but surely, with my Gidget tools and support, I started getting back to my old self. As much as one can after becoming a new parent, you're never quite your old self, but I was getting better. I felt like I deserved that. My husband deserved that, and certainly my baby did. I look back at that first year and I feel so robbed. A time which should have been so filled with joy, was really, honestly the darkest times of my life.
 
But reaching out for help was the first step, and it was one of the scariest and most courageous and bravest things I've ever done. Without having the services of Gidget I would hate to think where I would be and where my family would be right now. The services they provide nationally and growing, which is so, so exciting to have this vital service available for new parents. That brings me joy to know that there'll be hopefully fewer people in the position that Gidget was 23 years ago.
 
I'm just sharing my story today to encourage mums and dads around Australia just be brave. Start talking. They say it takes a village to raise a child. I actually believe it takes a village to raise an adult as well. Start talking, and please build your village. We are all here. Thank you.
 
JOURNALIST: Like you've mentioned, there's a number of services that are currently running across the state, in the perinatal support. Can you take us through kind of what the wait list is currently for those services?
 
BUTLER: I might ask Arabella to add to this, but as I said in my introductory remarks, these services are being delivered by a mix of state funded or state delivered services, and Commonwealth funded services. Beyond Blue used to have a very big footprint in this area, Gidget’s been operating for many years. A group called PANDA has been in place for even longer than Gidget. It's really spread across a number of different organisations. The states have taken on some additional responsibility under some bilateral agreements that we've struck with them over recent years. We're funding state governments to do a lot of the screening. I think it's fair to say that there's a high level of screening for expected mums and dads, and new mums and dads. The challenge has been ensuring that there are the follow up services for those who once screened demonstrate some signals of needing help, and that's really why we've made this investment into the Gidget Foundation.
 
GIBSON: I 100 per cent agree with everything that you just said there, Minister. The only thing I would add is that in the past 12 months, we have seen an increase in service delivery of 30 per cent year on year, and that has been a kind of a consistent number that we've seen over the past four years in terms of service delivery and need. Wait lists are there, and I think that's why this announcement is so exciting, because it means that we can get people into services that are more accessible, that are more timely and more equitable. It's fantastic from that perspective.
 
JOURNALIST: What are some of those factors behind that steady increase that you've just told us about?
 
GIBSON: The fact is, as Minister Butler mentioned, we are now rolling out national screening for people in the perinatal period. What that means is we're identifying that there are more people that need support. So this announcement allows for the services to be there to support the people that are diagnosed. I think some of the other reasons that are behind this naturally the cost of living, and financial pressures there is quite often you'll see relationship pressures, you might see pre-existing mental health conditions, issues around transitioning in and out of work, and the adjustment to parenthood, which is significant. We know that 50 per cent of new parents will experience adjustment disorders as a result of becoming a new parent. There's a range of different contributing factors that can be seen. And we know that with perinatal depression anxiety, if the baby blues go on for longer than two weeks and you're not feeling yourself, it is time to reach out to friends and family and kind of get a bit of a bit of a sense check. And of course, see your GP, because the GP can, of course, understand the symptoms and provide a mental health care plan to the Gidget Foundation with a referral.
 
JOURNALIST: You spoke about receiving timely care at the Commonwealth funded centres, what is classed as timely care?
 
BUTLER: These centres, as I said, are free of charge. They're available on referral, as Arabella just pointed out from a GP who can provide a mental health care plan and then a referral for the services that Gidget provides. Really there's no particular time. It's a question of parents feeling that, as Arabella said, if they've gone through a short period of the baby blues and it's not clearing, then I encourage you all like contact your GP, talk to your GP about what services are available to you. With this investment in the Gidget Foundation, there are more services now available.
 
JOURNALIST: Looking at similar services in Sydney, there's about a 10-month wait for some services now. Not to compare their situation to the one here, but how do we stop and what can be done to prevent having a similar backlog of 10 months?
 
BUTLER: I'm not going to pretend that an investment in 12 Gidget centres, is going to cover the entire population. We've got maybe 280,000 births every single year. This is going to be able to support thousands of parents every single year. It's a very significant investment to create 12 centres. I'm sure we'd like to do more into the future. But this is an addition, a significant addition, to the services that are available, not just through Gidget, although Gidget is really a leader in this field, but through a range of other organisations as well.
 
We're constantly trying to find ways across the health sector to fill the gaps in service that do exist in the system too often, and to shorten those wait times as well. That's  not just about funding services, it's also, frankly, about creating a larger workforce. One of the challenges we have, not just around perinatal mental health, but in mental health more broadly, is we don't have enough psychologists in this country. A significant investment from our government over the last couple of years has been to train hundreds more psychologists, to provide thousands of additional supervised places. Because the availability of psychologists is a very significant constraint in the mental health system broadly. No matter what services we want to fund, we need psychologists to be there to be able to deliver them.
 
JOURNALIST: What’s the accessibility for this kind of thing? I don’t have a child myself, but I can imagine it's pretty hard to get out of the house to do this kind of thing, to access service like this and go to the GP?
 
GIBSON: The Gidget Foundation offers telehealth services as well, we offer a blended model of care. You can either come into a Gidget House and also receive services via telehealth if you've got, for example, a bub with reflux, or birth trauma, caesarean, can't drive, etc, etc. That's one option, is a blended model. But we also offer telehealth services into regional, rural and remote locations to ensure that the services are available readily, everywhere, wherever possible.
 
COOPER: Most of my counselling sessions through Gidget were done via zoom call as well, which was really effective, because I could have someone minding Sky or while she was asleep, and I could be in my room on my laptop having this conversation. It was from the comfort of my own home, which was really helpful. It was a really valid point that you brought up. So thank you for that.
 
JOURNALIST: I’m just going to jump to the Australian Burden of Disease Study 2024 which has been released. It's found that living with overweight or obesity has overtaken tobacco smoking as the leading risk factor contributing to disease burden this year. How much of a concerning trend is that for you?
 
BUTLER: This is not a new trend, but this is a really significant moment for the country. First of all, I do have to say it reflects a world leading approach to tobacco control that we've had in this country for 50 years. We need to do more, and that's why we have put in place new tobacco control regulations. That's why we're taking such a hard approach to stamp out recreational vaping. Because we're not complacent about the trajectory on smoking. We know that it's been the leading cause of preventable disease and death for many, many decades, and has killed literally millions of Australians over the past 100 years or so. But it has been going down, and that is a good thing.
 
In the other very significant area of preventable disease, though rates of overweight and obesity in particular, obesity have been climbing steadily for many years now. We know that is a significant cause of a range of chronic conditions, diabetes, type two diabetes, obviously, but also related to that cardiovascular disease and others as well. This is probably, for the future, the most significant area of need in preventative health. We've got a really significant report from the Parliamentary Committee on Health delivered only in the last few months around diabetes, that focuses particularly on issues around overweight and obesity. We're looking at that very carefully, and a response to that over the coming period will be a really important foundation for a stronger preventative approach around issues of weight and obesity.
 
JOURNALIST: Looking aside from the report, like you've said, this is an issue that's been going on for years before. What has your government done to tackle these rates of obesity?
 
BUTLER: It needs to be said this is frankly a much more complex challenge than tobacco. Tobacco conceptually involves a just don't smoke approach, really conceptually that is relatively straightforward. Practically, it's often very difficult, because nicotine addiction is a very, very powerful addiction indeed. Issues of diet, though and weight, are more complex. They're more contested. The science of this is still contested as we know, through the current process the NHMRC is overseeing with their revision to their dietary guidelines, this is a highly contested space. We are going to take an evidence based approach to this. There are things governments have been doing for a number of years to encourage healthy eating, particularly among our youngest members of the community. When we were last in government, we rolled out many Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Programs in schools designed to teach kids and through kids, frankly, parents about healthy eating as well. But this is a very complex area. Most other countries in the world, particularly developed countries, are facing exactly the same trajectory. Smoking rates coming down, which is a good thing, but rates of overweight and obesity climbing in a very concerning level. Thanks, everyone.