CRAIG REUCASSEL, HOST: Thursday, the 10th of October, is World Mental Health Day. Mark Butler is the Federal Health Minister, and he joins me this morning. Morning Minister.
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: Morning Craig.
REUCASSEL: So do you agree that there's a mental health crisis in Australia?
BUTLER: Yes, the challenge with the word crisis is it makes it seem like it's a relatively short-term thing - it's only recently arrived, and hopefully, if we respond, it will be over quickly. But we've seen a steady and pretty substantial rise in mental distress now for 20 years, particularly among young people, but among adults as well. Yes, we have a huge burden on our community from mental health but it's not a temporary thing, it's not short-term. It's been a feature of our society, societies across the world for many, many years, and frankly, we haven't done well enough to respond to it.
REUCASSEL: And I guess we'll look at the causes of it in a second but you know, it's been fed into by other problems we're facing at the moment. So, the statistics out today that say the cost-of-living crisis is stopping nearly 50 per cent of Aussies from getting help and also preventing one in three from affording medication. This cost barrier is a huge problem when it comes to mental health.
BUTLER: It's a huge barrier. First of all, the cost-of-living crisis has caused mental distress in and of itself it's a driver of mental distress. Not long after we got through the pandemic, which itself was a driver of huge amounts of mental distress in adults, but particularly among young people, we were then hit by the global inflation crisis, which again has caused mental distress. That's one of the reasons why you're seeing high levels of mental distress in our community, and as I said, other communities around the world.
But as you said, one of the things we're particularly focused on is making sure we do everything to reduce the cost barriers for people accessing help. Our cheaper medicines, policies have been very much focused on the fact that almost a million people every year, the ABS, the Bureau of Statistics tells us choose not to fill a script that their doctor has said is important for their physical or their mental health because they can't afford it. Reducing the cost of medicines is not just good for people's hip pocket, it's good for their health, and we're starting to see that come through as well.
REUCASSEL: Should mental health medicines be made almost free then? If this is the case, I mean, if people are putting off taking medication for their mental health, that has potential flow on effects to the community as well?
BUTLER: We're certainly doing everything we can to reduce the price of medicines across the board. We're allowing people to access medicines they're on for some time on 60-day scripts, which means they get two scripts for the price of one. We've reduced the cost of scripts in general, saving hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. The challenge with that Craig is if you pick a particular health issue or particular disease and say medicines are free for that, it's hard to argue that medicines for mental health should be free, but not for cancer or for diabetes. We're trying to we're trying to make medicines cheaper across the board, and also make it cheaper to see the doctor. With our bulk billing changes have also added about 5 million additional free visits to the GP in just the last 10 or 11 months. That cost barrier is something we're particularly concerned about because people should be able to see a doctor or another health professional when they need it, regardless of cost. That's the core principle of Medicare, and they should be able to access medicines that their doctors have said are important for their health.
REUCASSEL: Earlier this morning, I talked to Sharon Grocott the CEO of WayAhead and one of the things we talked about was the fact that you have access to mental health sessions, 10 free sessions but whether or not that's enough, this is what she had to say:
WAYAHEAD CEO, SHARON GROCOTT RECORDING: It's absolutely out of touch. And each time you exceed the 10, you've then got to go back to a GP, pay another GP visit, get another referral. And for people that have ongoing mental health challenges, which many people do, they might have bipolar or schizophrenia, for example, 10 sessions well, that doesn't cut it. You know, you've got an ongoing condition it doesn't go away. You need ongoing treatment. So it's really out of touch.
REUCASSEL: Would you consider increasing the number of sessions from 10 Minister?
BUTLER: That number of 10 sessions has been in place for most of the last 20 years, except for a short period during COVID, where it was increased to deal with the impact of COVID. The reason for that really is that that particular scheme your guest was talking about was focused and designed for people with more mild to moderate needs that usually would be able to be resolved or assisted with four to six sessions of psychological therapy by and large. What we've seen that the sort of client that your guest talks about, maybe with more complex and severe issues like bipolar disorder were never really intended to be the client group of that scheme. They're supposed to be dealt with frankly, more focused support. We're rolling out new Medicare Mental Health Centres for people with those more moderate to severe needs and also recognising that there really isn't the stepped model of care that we need in mental health. Because, frankly, people have a very broad range of mental health needs, from relatively short term mild to moderate needs because of the impact of a life crisis like a divorce or a bereavement to quite complex and severe needs if they've got lifelong disorders like psychosis or bipolar disorder. At the moment, we don't really have those different steps to ensure that people are getting the right care for their particular needs, and that's something we've been working with the mental health sector on for the last 12 months.
REUCASSEL: Minister, we talked about the increase in mental health as one of the problems, one of the factors pointed to is the influence of social media on young children. There are stats out today that show 84 per cent of eight to 12-year-olds are using social media. Have we lost this battle already? Is it too late?
BUTLER: You and I have talked about vaping, Craig and I think when I talk to parents of kids of that age, really, vaping and social media are right at the front of their mind. They're incredibly concerned about the impact those two relatively new technologies are having on their kids or their nieces and nephews or grandkids. The fact that it sort of got away from us and so many young people using social media, those stats that you're talking about from the Commonwealth E-safety Commissioner were incredibly confronting, as are the statistics around the number of tweens or late primary school children who are vaping as well. But just because the numbers are big, we can't just raise the white flag on this. We've got to do everything we can as governments to arrest this, which is why we're committed next month, when we come back for Parliament in November, to introducing legislation with an age related ban on social media.
REUCASSEL: But how's that test on age verification going?
BUTLER: It's going and we're going to make sure that we're informed by the results of that as they roll out. I know also the New South Wales Premier and the South Australian premier are hosting a Social Media Summit in Sydney today and tomorrow as well. And I think that's going to be a really important source of information. We're watching that very closely. They're committed, Premier Minns and Premier Malinauskas, are committed to feeding the results of that into the federal government as well.
REUCASSEL: But what personally, what age do you think the restrictions should be? Do you think it should be up till 16 that you don't have social media. Where do you think the ad limit should go?
BUTLER: We're going to take advice on that. The Prime Minister wrote to the Premiers seeking their views about that in the last week or so, different experts are coming together, as I say, at the social media summit to discuss the generally the range between 14 and 16, which is generally where people are looking to really get the most effective regime possible. We've got to do something, though, parents are crying out for the tools that they don't have right now, to make sure their kids are kept safe. Young people themselves are reporting that social media is impacting their mental health. Headspace, the terrific youth mental health organisation did a survey a little while ago that said that more than 40 per cent of young people said that social media was impacting their mental health in a negative way.
REUCASSEL: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you speaking to us, Minister, we will stay tuned on this, as you say, a crisis that we need to keep looking at.
Media event date:
Date published:
Media type:
Transcript
Audience:
General public
Minister: