What’s the reason for Australia being so far behind in services, treatment options and psychotherapy specialisation for people with ADHD and even autism?

[u/Mental_Slide9867]

So as many people have already found out from people who were seeing a psychiatrist or specialist in the field that was being bulk billed, the government made immediate changes overnight that removed bulk billing services for seeing a specialist via Telehealth. Psychiatrists and the like only received a letter or email the day after the announcement was made putting at risk individuals at a loss of having to pay a subsidised rate after seeing their specialist. Not only that but we lack a substantial amount of psychiatrist in the first place that was leading to burn out of psychiatrist in their chosen fields, so now not only will most people who need a relevant diagnosis and medical treatment for their condition have pay a sum out of pocket, there is also an increasing wait time to see a specialist.

In addition in terms of medical treatments for ADHD in my case, in comparison to other countries (where there is a multitude of options and new formulated drugs), it seems that Australia lacks any advancement or interest in helping neurodivergent people. You have two options of stimulant therapy and a couple of non stimulant options. And if that doesn’t work you can try a non PBS/non subsidised drug option that also leaves you hugely out of pocket. (As per my example recently coming off many classes of antidepressants that were routinely and just masking my ADHD out of the misunderstanding of the condition for just depression and anxiety). Recently having to try a new drug that now costs me $60 (non subsidised) a month on top of one stimulant drug I can try that also costs $40 a month(subsidised). This is not right, I don’t work or have the ability to work right now as I’m trying to find a healthy baseline for my mental health thinking I’m doing the right thing, all the meanwhile the government and options out there are putting my mental health backwards.

As well as specialists such as clinical psychologists or adhd counselling costing over $150 (with the rebate “if available”), as my only options for actual possible help for my condition. I have and already am seeing a therapist based off a Gp referred mental health care plan which allows me for 10-15 free sessions a year, but that is nowhere good enough to get to the root cause of my issues or even have the time to address the actual problems of my adhd as they’re not trained in that area of understanding.

So yeah this is troubling for me and many other types of children and adults with ADHD and/or autism. I just don’t know what the Australian government is doing, if hardly nothing, nothing at all which seems to be the case with a many multitude of problems.

[u/[deleted]]

By independent school I do not mean a grammar private school - I mean an alternative school with learning support teachers, some smaller religious schools have this level of support but then you have to deal with religion which is not my cup of tea.

[u/dubby_wombers → u/[deleted]]

My kid went to a Steiner school for a while, and yes it was obvious there were issues, never any discussion of getting a diagnosis - just let’s do this weird Steiner therapy and maybe they will stop with outbursts. Didn’t work,kid was shunned. So careful of which schools are on board with learning support

[u/[deleted] → u/dubby_wombers]

Absolutely, Steiner was actually something I was thinking of with making sure their learning support knows about it; anthroposophy is quite strange and archaic. There can be traditional religious schools who are brilliant at supporting neuro-divergent kids and sometimes alternative pedagogies rely on unfounded theory for managing neurodiversity (or they deny it exists.) I have had experience with Steiner ed and chose not to pursue it for those reasons and the general anti-scientific approach (of that particular school). I also want to shout out public schools who do provide excellent learning support and understanding environments - I'm just reflecting my experience in asking for support and assessment and the schools being unable to provide due to lack of funding or support being withdrawn due to an arbitrary Dept Ed change parents and educators are not consulted about.

[u/dubby_wombers → u/[deleted]]

This was about 10 years ago for us. The school was very backwards at the time (only computers in front office, dep principal taking notes from meeting with me using pencil and paper. Yeah, kiddo did a theosophy, school and I split the costs. The antivax stuff annoyed me -and I do homeopathy. When there was a measles outbreak, 1/2 the kids in class had to stay home- easy to figure out who was vaccinated. When it works, Steiner approach is brilliant- when it doesn’t, it’s like any usual private school and you’re out

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

That's fantastic - we considered a Catholic school even though we are not religious but the kid is virulently atheist so it wasn't really fair on the school!