Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I regularly hear stories from veterans, their families and their loved ones, and, regrettably, all too often these stories detail problems veterans face when accessing the health and mental health care they desperately need. One of the reasons for this is that veterans are being left behind as DVA rates for health care continue to fall behind rebates offered by other government funded programs such as the NDIS. For example, last year I met with the Tasmanian branch president of the Australian Physiotherapy Association, who highlighted the inequity between rebates. He told me that, in his practice, all initial consultations are at least 45 minutes, with NDIS paying $168.45 and private patients paying $164.50. Unfortunately, though, the DVA fee is stuck at $70.80, regardless of the time spent with veterans in the initial consult, with no ability to charge a gap fee. As a result, 26 per cent of physiotherapists in Australia have already limited or stopped providing services to DVA clients, not because they don't passionately care about veterans but because their practice would not be financially viable if they were to continue treating DVA clients.

I have raised this issue personally with the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, who assured me that the government is aware of the issue. But still nothing has been done to fix it, and no solution seems to be on the horizon. Moreover, this inequity is not limited to allied health. Indeed, recently I heard from a DVA gold card holder who had been told by his GP that, because the DVA rebate didn't cover the cost of providing care, they would only see him as a private patient in the future.

It's not just funding problems that are creating difficulties for veterans accessing care; it's also a lack of harmonisation between federal and state government laws. For example, just last year the Therapeutic Goods Administration permitted medicines containing MDMA and psilocybin to be prescribed by authorised psychiatrists for people with certain mental health conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder and treatment-resistant depression, two conditions experienced at higher rates by veterans. But some states, including Tasmania, are yet to update their legislation, so, while the treatment is legal federally, it cannot be prescribed locally.

It's well known that veterans experience higher rates of mental ill health and often highly complex medical conditions as a direct result of their service, but just as often they cannot receive the care they need because of low rebates and delays with access to treatment. This must be addressed as a genuine priority of government, because, quite frankly, anything less is simply not good enough.