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‘Overdue but welcome’ Government response to reproductive health calls
GPs could soon play a bigger role in reproductive care after the Government backed dozens of recommendations to enable greater access and affordability.
Recommendations supported by the Government will help to address ‘postcode lotteries’ and gaps in appropriate care for both patients and healthcare providers.
The Federal Government has handed down its long-awaited response to a Senate inquiry’s calls for urgent reproductive healthcare changes, supporting in full less than half of the committee’s recommendations.
Almost two years ago, the Senate’s Community Affairs References Committee released its ‘Ending the postcode lottery: Addressing barriers to sexual, maternity and reproductive healthcare in Australia’ report.
Despite being initially due in August 2023, this month, the Department of Health and Aged Care’s (DoHAC) newly released response outlines support for 15 of the Committee’s 36 recommendations, and ‘support in-principle’ for 21.
The DoHAC-supported recommendations include those backed by the RACGP, following a public hearing in early 2023 attended by then President Dr Nicole Higgins, who called for the Government to ‘act on them without delay’.
These include better support through remuneration and training for GPs for the insertion and removal of long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs).
The Committee’s recommendations supported in full by the Government also include:
This week’s response comes off the back of the Government’s
$573 million women’s health package announced on 9 February and
applauded by the RACGP.
Chair of RACGP Specific Interests Sexual Health Medicine Dr Sara Whitburn, said the DoHAC’s response is ‘delayed but welcome’, and will enable better access to affordable and safe reproductive healthcare.
‘It is overdue, however, coming out with this package plus incorporating both the sexual and reproductive health and also responding to the
menopause Senate Inquiry, is welcome,’ she told
newsGP.
‘Because we know that sexual reproductive health is across a lifetime, it’s working with what we’ve got now, and trying to really address those postcode lotteries and gaps that both health professionals, and women and people with uteruses and gender-diverse people, have been asking for.’
A review of the MBS items available for LARC insertion and removal is included in the 2024–25 Federal Budget.
The Budget also saw an additional $124.6 million over three years from 2025–26, with ongoing funding of $44.7 million per year from 2028–29 to remove access and affordability barriers for LARCs, including increasing the LARC item fees on the MBS.
Increasing the Medicare patient rebate for introduction and insertion of an IUD (item 35503) to $222.65 is one of
the RACGP’s Federal Election advocacy asks.
Dr Whitburn said the Government’s response to the Senate Inquiry report helps to address issues around access to reproductive healthcare, particularly LARCs.
‘Health professionals and advocacy groups [all say] that sexual and reproductive health takes time,’ she said.
‘We need that time to provide good, holistic sexual reproductive health in the greater context of general health, and with providing LARCs we know there’s certain barriers such as time, access, training [for healthcare providers], setting up a new clinic.
‘So the Government is really responding to those barriers that contribute to
LARC uptake being lower … and it is also recognising that LARCs are effective.
‘We’ve seen in other countries that if you remove barriers, you’ve got an increased uptake – and that’s around people having choice around their reproductive and sexual health.’
In its report, the DoHAC also supports recommendations to:
- implement culturally safe, trauma-informed continuity of care models to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) people
- improve engagement with people with disability
- improve ongoing support for the health and wellbeing of LGBTIQA+ people
- expand the CALD sexual and reproductive health workforce
- improve data collection relating to sexual and reproductive healthcare
- improve sexual health education in schools
- commission research into reproductive coercion and abuse with a view to developing clinical guidelines and resources for primary care providers.
It also ‘notes’ three additional recommendations from The Greens:
- Government-funded free provision of all approved contraceptive methods
- Federal, state, and territory governments to work towards the harmonisation of pregnancy termination legislation across all Australian jurisdictions, based on best practice models of care
- Government removal of legal barriers to accessing IVF and altruistic surrogacy arrangements
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contraception healthcare access LARCs long-acting reversible contraceptives reproductive healthcare sexual health women’s health
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