Local mental health advocates slam government cuts to Medicare psychology sessions

Cuts to Medicare-subsidised psychology sessions will harm people already struggling to access mental health support and overwhelm a healthcare system in crisis, they said.

Since October 2020, Australians have been able to access 20 government-subsidised psychologist appointments through a mental health treatment plan, raised from ten to cope with worsening mental health during COVID.

Ten psychology sessions per year - less than one per month - is not enough to provide meaningful support, advocates said, and may even be harmful to clients.

Read more: Constantly under the weather? 2022 was the sickest year in two decade

The federal government has justified cuts by claiming the ten extra sessions were largely accessed by people from high-socioeconomic backgrounds, and the high-demand for sessions aggravated wait lists.

Illawarra Women's Health Centre Executive Director Sally Stevenson AM said cutting subsidies will not fix the problem of ballooning wait lists and instead may lead to an under-treatment of poor mental health, for which both the individual and the health system will eventually bear the costs.

"It exposes the system-wide problems - the lack of funding and accessibility for mental health services - certainly for marginalised, vulnerable populations," Ms Stevenson said.

Mental health given an "expiry date"

For 20-year-old Wollongong student Mia*, who only started seeing a psychologist in November, the mental health care she needs will be out of her reach without government subsidies.

Now, Mia pays almost $200 for a fortnightly psychology appointment and receives around $90 back through Medicare - this stretches her student budget, and when she exhausts her ten subsidised appointments, she will be forced to forgo mental health support entirely.

"You can't have ten appointments to get better - it's like you're given an expiry date," she said.

"Do they think mental health is measured by ten appointments? It's not."

Mia said without the psychology appointments, her mental health would be "plummeting".

Illawarra Women's Health Centre Executive Director Sally Stevenson AM said ten psychology sessions is only enough to keep people's heads above water, but in many cases, not enough to make meaningful progress.

"Ten a year is less than one a month - what that means is it keeps people treading water," Ms Stevenson said.

After burning through ten sessions, Ms Stevenson said people often still have residual symptoms of their mental health problems, increasing the chance of their health deteriorating again.

The cuts will also push people in need of support into the public health system, including organisations like the Women's Health Centre, which are already overwhelmed, she said.

"The crisis continues": Children locked out of support

Cuts to mental health subsidies will lock children out of continuing mental health support after depression, anxiety and self harm spiked among young people during COVID, an Illawarra child psychologist said.

Principal child psychologist at Austinmer's Quirky Kid clinic Dr Kimberley O'Brien said cuts to mental health plans, which also apply to children, ignore the fact that many kids and young people are still struggling with the mental toll of the pandemic and re-adapting to the school environment.

A 2021 study by the Australian National University found 61.8 per cent of parents and carers with children aged five to nine believed their kids had worsening mental health conditions during the pandemic, while 63.4 per cent with children aged 10 to 14 said the same.

"They increased it [mental health care plans] during COVID because of the mental health crisis, but the crisis continues," Dr O'Brien said.

Read more: The cancer most prevalent in the Illawarra - and which types are killing us

"It doesn't make sense to go back to pre-COVID times."

For many parents, subsidy cuts will mean taking psychology sessions off the table for their children due to the costs.

For children who may have a diagnosis like ADHD or Autism Spectrum Disorder, psychology sessions can help them develop skills to function better in the classroom, she said, like increasing attention span and practising social skills.

"It would be a real shame to see kids not learning those skills," she said.

Sally Stevenson said if the federal government is determined to continue with subsidy cuts, they should consider the possibility of means testing or allocating more subsidised sessions to people facing serious trauma.

"Those kind of solutions should be part of the conversation," she said

*Not her real name.