GPs fear cuts to a children’s health check program will hurt those most vulnerable. Source: Supplied
TASMANIA’S most vulnerable children will miss out on health checks essential to their education after funding was axed in the Federal Budget, doctors say.
General practitioners say free Healthy Kids Checks have been identifying pre-schoolers who have problems with hearing, speech, language and behaviour issues.
The checks have been paid for under Medicare and are designed to pick up problems before the crucial years of school but they face the axe from November 1.
The benefits are claimable for consultations on children aged three to five.
More than 154,000 four-year-olds nationally received the checks last year — about 3600 Tasmanians on a pro rata basis.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and Speech Pathology Australia said losing the funding would be a blow.
GP David Knowles, Tasmanian chairman of the college, said his Eastern Shore practice had been kept busy with the preventive checks.
“It’s a missed opportunity. I think we all believe that early intervention, especially with speech and hearing, is critical,” Dr Knowles said.
“More children are not going to have these health checks before they start school.”
Many surgeries had bought specialist equipment to ensure the best screening.
A study in the Medical Journal of Australia found the most common problem detected in the checks related to speech and language.
“When the early detection of speech difficulties in children is so critical, the effective abolition of the Healthy Kids Check makes no sense at all,” Speech Pathology Australia president Deborah Theodoros said.
The Federal Government said “only half” of children were taking up the checks and they cost far more than a GP consultation for the same amount of time.
Health Minister Sussan Ley said there was no disputing health checks for children were important but the policy did not live up to is name.
“This service was always a straight duplication of existing high-quality state infant checks and GP services, but at a premium price for parents and taxpayers, and there’s no medical evidence to back up why,” Ms Ley said.
She said parents could still have their compulsory child health checks for income support eligibility through existing standard GP visits, funded by the Commonwealth through Medicare, and through state infant and children check programs.
Denison MP Andrew Wilkie said it was a repeat of last year’s Budget that bad news affecting disadvantaged people was hard to unearth.
“The people who rely on these checks are the ones least afford to pay for one,” Mr Wilkie said.
The Tasmanian Government said the change was disappointing.
But a Government spokesman said checks would continue to be provided at child and family health centres.
“The Hodgman Liberal Government is committed to giving young Tasmanians the best health and wellbeing we can, which is why we’ve reintroduced the school nurses program,” the spokesman said.
Ten registered nurses would start work in primary and secondary schools from July.