Families are waiting almost two years for a paediatrician appointment in WA as almost 10,000 sick children are left in limbo, and parents look east for help.
The waitlist has forced desperate parents to resort to the “bank of nan and pop”, quick loan agents, or look into how they can tap into their superannuation in order to go private or fly east in the hopes of seeing a specialist sooner.
Primary-school aged kids are waiting up to a year and nine months for a paediatrician appointment — a three-month increase since February 2023.
There’s an almost five-month wait for an audiologist, while more than 4200 children are on a list to see a speech pathologist.
The Garden Family Medical Clinic Murdoch director and owner, Dr Andrew Leech, said he had hired paediatric nurse Chloe Barber to keep up with demand.
“Ten thousand on the waitlist is a shock. That’s 10,000 children that are the future of our State that are not being looked after and not being seen,” he said.
“There doesn’t seem to be any increase in funding or support for this general increasing demand.”
Dr Leech called for more support for GPs and a more holistic care model to help distressed parents trying to navigate the system.
“There’s an increased demand in the paediatric child and adolescent health area because many of these children need primary-level care while they’re waiting,” he said.
“I’d absolutely love to see funding for specialists and nurses to come into general practice and work alongside us to help. This is a model that I would imagine would be very effective, but GP clinics just can’t afford it.”
Dr Leech said having a nurse had helped him manage the workload.
“We’re just fortunate that I’ve had time to develop this and work out ways to try and make it more affordable. But ultimately, it’s to help stop me from burnout,” he said.
“It actually reduces the pressure on me so that I can actually see more people.”
As a mother and a child health nurse, Ms Barber has seen issues the waitlist has created firsthand.
“I had this child once who had autism and was nonverbal. He was in hospital for over three months purely because their parents didn’t know how to support him out home,” she said.
“The biggest thing for me is seeing that continuity of care.”
Shadow early childhood minister Donna Faragher accused the Cook Government of not acting quickly enough.
The Upper-House Liberal MP chaired a bipartisan WA parliamentary committee into delays in the Child Development Services, which released its interim report in November with recommendations around immediate steps to reduce wait times.
“Families waiting to access these services for their children are absolutely frustrated and have every right to ask what it will take for the Cook Labor Government to act and properly fund this critical child health area,” Ms Faragher said.
“The Health Minister’s one-page response to the Committee’s report was beyond underwhelming. It gave no indication of extra funding or any meaningful response to its various findings and recommendations.”
Mum and founder of Perth Kids Hub, Pia Hazelwood, said the current wait times were the worst she’s seen.
Knowing the difficulties parents face first-hand after seeking care for her daughter, Ms Hazelwood started compiling a list of available paediatricians and allied health professionals for her site, Perth Kids Hub, in 2021.
“It’s not unusual for there to be a two-year wait to see a paediatrician already. It’s enormous for parents. It’s such a long time in their lives,” she said.
“It’s disappointing that the waitlist has become longer and larger. That’s just the median. I would hate to know what the longest wait time is.”
She said the delays caused a “ripple effect” in families, triggering mental health woes, financial pressures, or even relationship or marriage breakdowns.
Ms Hazelwood said she had parents asking how they could access their superannuation to pay for help or take up second or third jobs.
Dr Leech described similar stories including parents asking family to help pay costs or taking out loans.
WA Health in December changed its rules around dispensing interstate prescriptions, allowing pharmacists to provide prescribed drugs regardless of the Australian State or Territory it was attained.
It means the families who fly to see interstate paediatricians skip WA’s backlog or take their telehealth appointments will be able to get medication dispensed in WA.
While Ms Hazelwood welcomed the change, she said it was creating a division in society, leaving those less fortunate to languish on the lengthy waitlists.
Ms Faragher called for greater funding for the Metro Child Development Services (CDS).
“We know the Health Department’s Child and Adolescent Health Service has repeatedly applied unsuccessfully for additional funding with the Cook Government only able to find an extra $300,000, up from $35.7 million to ‘approximately $36 million’, to support the MCDS within their multi-billion budget surplus in 2023-24,” she said.
Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said she empathised with parents and didn’t dispute the “unprecedented surge” in referrals.
“The service is being challenged like never before, at a time when there is a worldwide shortage of paediatricians,” she said.
“As private paediatricians close their books to new patients, the State-funded service does not turn away new referrals, and in the past 10 years, referrals to CDS paediatricians have risen by 132 per cent.
“Patients are increasingly presenting with multiple conditions or diagnoses or with complex social factors that impact care, but I want to reassure the community that addressing the challenges of the CDS is a priority for this Government.”
The State Government has undertaken several reforms, including changing the Schedule 8 prescribing code for interstate, expanding operating hours, a refreshed recruitment drive and transitioning to an electronic referrals process.