Great Southern mother leads calls for State Parliamentary inquiry into allied health services for children

A Katanning mother is pushing for a parliamentary inquiry into wait times and access to public health services for WA children in a bid to stop them slipping through the cracks while waiting for a diagnosis. Community Kindergartens Association of WA president Jo Matthewson launched a petition to WA’s Legislative Council on July 21, calling for a parliamentary committee to investigate the adequacy of child development services and related programs in WA. “Timely access to early learning programs and child development services are pivotal to a child’s overall wellbeing and development,” the petition reads. “The wait lists to access paediatricians, clinical psychologists, allied health specialists and other therapeutic services in the public health system are, however, too long and are causing significant challenges for children and their families living in metropolitan, regional and remote locations”. Ms Matthewson said she started the petition because the wait times for childhood public health services impacted every WA family and were “rapidly getting worse, day by day”. More than 3200 people had signed the petition as of Tuesday. Data tabled in WA Parliament in March revealed Great Southern children aged 5-11 faced the longest wait to see an audiologist in country WA, with children waiting an average of 207 days for their first appointment through the WA Country Health Service. They also faced the longest wait for occupational therapy at 160 days, followed by the Pilbara (99 days). The Great Southern had the second-longest average wait (167 days) for an appointment with a public clinical psychologist. More recent figures provided in June show children in WA’s public health system were waiting an average of 15.9 months for an appointment with a paediatrician, and there was a median wait time of 12 months for mental health support. Ms Matthewson said she hoped a parliamentary committee would be able to find a solution to the pressures on the allied health services system. “There are all of these different factors that need to be looked at, investigated and then changed to make sure that kids are not falling in the cracks and the most in need are getting seen,” she said. “I think the findings and then the actual action afterwards to improve this for our children is what is most needed because the kids, their families and schools can’t keep waiting this long.” The call for a parliamentary inquiry comes after Perth Wildcats coach Scott Morrison last month revealed his resignation from the role and return to Canada had been driven by his family’s inability to access help for his two-year-old son Max. Ms Matthewson said she had been flooded with messages from parents since the petition went live. “There are just so many different stories of ‘I’m still waiting for my first appointment’, or ‘I can’t get an appointment with the paediatrician to get the assessment to then go and see the next specialist’,” she said. “They’re not just looking at a 12-month wait to see a paediatrician because goodness knows how long they are going to wait to see the next specialist after they get a diagnosis — if they get one. “Meanwhile, the children are still attending school, not getting Department of Education-funded education assistance or unable to get NDIS funding because there is no diagnosis. “So they’re just going through the school years and slipping through the cracks.” Shadow Early Childhood Learning Minister Donna Faragher will present the petition to the Legislative Council next week and move a motion to establish the committee. Ms Faragher said she had seen the wait time figures rise. “That is not the fault of those health professionals who are working in the sector, there is increased demand and need for services,” she said. Ms Faragher said the committee — proposed to report back to parliament within 12 months — would investigate ways to improve services. “I think more resources are required, but we also need to think the outside box and look at the resources we already have,” Ms Faragher said. “We need to look at collaboration between government and non-government services, and see what other states and territories are doing with initiatives such as having speech pathologists at schools and look at what works for them.” Ms Faragher noted the status quo could not continue. “It is simply not acceptable for there to be a wait times of nine, 12 or 16 months,” she said. “Children, no matter where they live in the State, deserve timely access to child development services.” A State Government spokeswoman told the Herald the government had taken steps to increase the number of paediatricians working in WA. She said the petition would be considered. “There has been a 40 per cent increase in the number of new children seen for assessment by a developmental paediatrician compared to 2020, and there is a limited number of paediatricians currently working in WA,” the spokeswoman said. “This has led to increased waiting times across both the public and private systems. “The Child and Adolescent Health Service has invested in increasing the number of child development services developmental paediatricians, and increasing the number of developmental paediatrician training positions to address the growing demand.”