A comprehensive health check for children aged three to five has been scrapped by the federal government to save about $144 million over four years, angering GPs and speech pathologists.
In last week's budget, the Abbott government axed Medicare funding for the "Healthy Kids Check", a consultation with a nurse or GP to assess a child's health and development before they start school. Funding for the program will stop in November.
The scheme, introduced by the Labor government in 2008, includes assessments of a child's height and weight, hearing, eye sight, oral health, toilet habits and known or suspected allergies to ensure parents understand the risk of anaphylaxis and how to prevent it.
While 154,000 children - about half of Australia's four-year-olds - used the program last year at a cost of $20 million, Health Minister Sussan Ley said taxpayers and parents were paying "premium" prices for GPs to conduct the checks, which duplicate similar state government-run health programs for children.
Medicare pays between $58 for a healthy kids check consultation with a nurse and $269 for an hour with a GP, depending on the child's needs. The federal government says these payments are far more generous than Medicare payments for standard GP consultations, during which parents can still ask for their child's health to be assessed. For example, a GP consultation that lasts longer than 40 minutes attracts a Medicare payment of $105.55.
"The fact that only half of all four-year-olds have used the programme after seven long years underperforming shows this was more about glossy Labor election commitments than filling a service gap in health system," Ms Ley said.
Ms Ley said parents who wanted to get health checks done for their children could still attend a GP to have one performed during a standard consultation. This includes parents who need one performed to be eligible for income support.
With the government expecting to save $144 million over four years by cutting the program, Ms Ley said savings would be redirected to "other health policy priorities" or reinvested into the Medical Research Future Fund.
While some health policy experts have questioned the value of the Healthy Kids Check program, a study published in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2014 found it was detecting problems in about one in five children. The most common problems identified related to speech and language, followed by toilet habits, hearing, vision and behavioural issues.
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Dr Frank R Jones said he was disappointed by the federal government's decision, which was made without consulting GPs.
"Restricting this service to state-based programs will limit access and further fragment care by forcing families to seek care outside their regular general practice," he said.
Speech Pathology Australia president Professor Deborah Theodoros said scrapping a check that facilitated early intervention services for children with problems before school "made no sense at all".
"The Health Minister has only recently announced there is to be a review of the Medicare Benefits Scheme. Now even before this review has commenced this important health check is to be effectively killed off," she said.
In Victoria, maternal and child health services offer a health check for 3 ½ year-olds that cover "family health and wellbeing"; healthy eating; dental care; sun protection and water safety; improving communication, language and play; and immunisations.
Melbourne mother Kate Sheahan said she was disappointed the government was cutting the Healthy Kids Check because it offered a rare opportunity to discuss more than one issue and preventative health strategies with a GP while your child is well.
For much of the last year, Ms Sheahan said she been shunted between doctors and hospitals with her son, Will, 4, while he was being diagnosed with asthma, a severe allergy and sleep apnoea, partly caused by large tonsils. Rather than responding to crises, she said it would have been far more useful and less stressful to have a thorough health check for Will that picked up these problems before they became acute.
"For so long Will was struggling with these things and handling it really well, but it could have been solved a long time ago with less anxiety," she said.
"I kept feeling like I was over reacting when I wasn't."
