Radio interview with Minister Butler and Charlie McKillop, ABC Far North - 11 December 2024

CHARLIE MCKILLOP, HOST: The Federal Health Minister, Mark Butler, dropped by yesterday on his way to visit the Urgent Care Clinic for the very first time. And Minister Butler told me the figures show that the clinic is doing what it was intended to do, but that doesn't mean it's fixed. The bigger issue of hospital emergency departments being stretched to the limit.
 
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: We open the clinic anyway. It had important work to do during the cyclone and already it has seen 15,000 people from Cairns. This is for care you need immediately, urgent care needs but things you don't necessarily need to go to hospital for. 1 in 3 of the patients that have gone through these clinics, 1 in 3 are kids under the age of 15. Think about your kid falling off the skateboard or getting injured in Saturday afternoon sport. You need to have them seen immediately, but they don't necessarily need to go to a fully equipped hospital. But until now, that's been the only choice. It's open seven days a week, available to walk in appointments, and importantly, it's fully bulk billed. Every one of those 1 million patients have been bulk billed.
 
Now, I drove past the Cairns ED last night very late, probably 11pm when I landed, it was overflowing. Hospitals are still under very real pressure. We're older, we're sicker, we're still dealing with the legacy of the COVID pandemic, when people were not getting the care that they needed. But I know from hospital stats, these Urgent Care Clinics are taking some of the pressure off the hospital beds. Those doctors and nurses are able to focus on the life threatening emergencies that they were built for; the heart attacks, the serious car accidents, the strokes and all those sorts of things, where you absolutely do need access to some of the best hospital care you will get anywhere on the planet.
 
MCKILLOP: We're still dealing also Minister, with the historical legacy of underfunding of Medicare. That's what GPs have been asking you to do for the two years or so since you were elected on the promise of fixing our healthcare crisis.
 
BUTLER: They asked me to triple the bulk billing incentive, and in last year's Budget, I did that. It's the biggest investment in bulk billing ever. And bulk billing was in freefall when we came to government. I tripled the bulk billing incentive billions of dollars of investment. First of all, that stopped the freefall and in every state and territory, it started to rebound. In Leichhardt, the electorate of Cairns and surrounding regions up to the Cape, bulk billing is up by 3 per cent in the last 12 months, delivered tens of thousands of additional free visits to the GP and about 5.5 million across the country. We've got in this Cairns region, we've got more doctors because of the changes I've put in place when I got elected, more bulk billing, more urgent care options, cheaper medicines. Now these are making a real difference. But I know it's really tough still to access healthcare like you can't -
 
MCKILLOP: That's right, we have regional towns that you just can't get to see a doctor.
 
BUTLER: Absolutely. I've tried to be as honest as I can with the Australian people. You cannot turn a decade of cuts and neglect around in ten years, particularly when you're dealing with some of those background pressures I talked about. We are doing all we can and we are starting to see things turn around. But I know there is much more for us to do. Part of the reason I'm up here speaking with healthcare professionals, with patients, with Matt Smith, our Leichhardt Candidate, and with Nita Green, the Senator is I want to know what more we can do.
 
MCKILLOP: Federal Health Minister Mark Butler. Your guest on ABC Far North Breakfast. I'll tell you, Minister, one thing that has worked for the residents of Mission Beach was a collaboration between the primary healthcare network, our local Cairns and Hinterland Health Service, and the local council, the Cassowary Regional Council, there. That community has been able to restore a GP, and I know that there were many listeners in other towns wondering, well, can we be next?
 
BUTLER: That's right. I met with the mayor and with Bob Katter, and he raised Mission Beach with me. He raised Cardwell with me as well, which has not been able to fill their GP position for a couple of years. We have something called the GP Incentive Fund, which is designed to put some money into a particular town to attract a GP to come. Often what they're doing is replacing a retiring GP who's just delivered service in that community for decades and decades but has taken the decision to retire. Mission Beach that worked and I understand they started delivering services last month. And Cardwell, I think we have a tender open or an expression of interest process open and expect those services to start in the new year sometime as well. This is a model that's working. If there are communities that feel that just with a bit of investment from the Commonwealth, that might make the difference in someone relocating to their beautiful town and delivering services, we're all ears.
 
MCKILLOP: As Health Minister, you get the final say on what drugs make it onto the PBS, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme I'm sure you get lobbied in all sorts of ways about all sorts of medications, but I doubt that there are many cases more compelling than the woman I met earlier this year, Lisa Laird. She's fighting for her life not only against the cancer that has ravaged her body, but also the health system that has put potentially life saving drugs out of reach. And it's not because the drug isn't approved, Enhertu or TDX is approved for some cancer sufferers, but not for Lisa Laird and 7,000 other Australian women who have HER2-negative breast cancer. Can't we fix that?
 
BUTLER: First of all, I'd say, you know, we try to do everything we can to give Australians access to this extraordinary sort of period of discovery we're going through. The drugs that are coming onto the market would have been unthinkable or unimaginable 10-20 years ago. But we do that in a system that requires, by law, that I get a positive recommendation from a group of medicines experts, The Advisory Committee for Pharmaceutical Benefits -
 
MCKILLOP: And which I believe have now advised, have recommended it. So I think that's in train.
 
BUTLER: That's right. As I understand it, I'd have to check and I can come back to you. But I understand that there has been a listing of Enhertu for HER2-negative. But some of these cancer drugs are initially listed. Then we get clinical trial data or other evidence that suggests, well, actually they're not just good for this type of cancer or this particular strain of breast cancer, for example, it also works for something else. And we expand those listings when we get that evidence and they're properly assessed. I can come back to you about that. But Enhertu has been expanded recently, I announced that only in the last few months. Whether it covers the particular patient you're talking about I can advise you.
 
MCKILLOP: I think it does. And I hope it's not too little, too late for Lisa. But AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical company, has brought this drug to Australia. It has claimed that our system of approving that, a system that you were just referring to, is among the slowest and most cumbersome in the world. Do you get that feedback, Minister?
 
BUTLER: I conducted a review of our systems, not just of assessing medicines, but mainly medicines, but other therapies as well. The first review of its type in 30 years. I've got the report in front of me, It's called the Health Technology Assessment Review. It makes some really important recommendations for us to update a system that served Australia incredibly well for decades. But you're right, is creaking, is really finding it hard to deal with the pressure of the number of new therapies coming on the market for their assessment, but their complexity as well. They're not big blockbuster tablet medications anymore. They're much more complex. They're much more personalised and targeted to people's particular conditions, sometimes their genetic profile. And they sometimes require us a different type of assessment process. I've got that before me. I've set up an implementation group to advise and make sure that we are we're sort of getting that balance between giving Australian patients access to the best available treatments in the world at affordable prices, while also making sure taxpayers are getting value for money.
 
MCKILLOP: Minister, thank you for speaking with our listeners on ABC Far North. I can't let you leave Cairns without asking on behalf of the many, many residents who have in the past and continue to rely on our COUCH Cancer Wellness Centre, a product of community campaigning to provide dedicated cancer support services. Are you aware of COUCH and the work that it does in our community? And if you are, why won't you renew a funding agreement so that there can be some surety around this facility?
 
BUTLER: I have heard of COUCH. There are hundreds and hundreds of these programs that come up for renewal frequently. I don't have that detail in my head. I'm happy to go away and get some advice about it. But these community-based organisations that deliver support to patients, it's a very important part of our health system. Our health system is not just made up of big hospitals and big drug companies like AstraZeneca, you referred to. One of the strengths of our system is, community-based initiatives like that one. I don't have that answer off the top of my head. I'm happy to take it away though.
 
MCKILLOP: It is a really important facility in our community. Minister, I hope that may be why you're in Far North Queensland. You get to swing by. It's about ten minutes from the ABC studio here. But I do again, just want to say thank you for being so generous with your time and speaking with our listeners about a range of topics, all without a single sheet of notes in front of you. So I do appreciate that you are across the detail when you are, given a bit of notice about those issues. So we'll look forward to the follow up.
 
BUTLER: Thanks for having me.