Women's health funding restricted — again
The federal government has announced that it will cut by more than 20% rebates for ultrasound scans for women in early pregnancy. This will curb "overuse" of the service, it claims.
Acting health minister Bronwyn Bishop confirmed on January 10 that the government had made an agreement with obstetricians to cut rebates. The government's definition of inappropriate overuse includes women wishing to have photos and videos of their future child.
The use of ultrasound by women is necessary for a range of reasons, not the least of which to check the health of the foetus. This relates especially to women who may choose to abort if an early abnormality is detected.
Women who choose this form of testing in the first 12 weeks will now have to pay more, yet research shows that terminations carried out within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy are safer than those performed later. Current restrictions on abortion (in most states it still remains on the criminal code) mean that terminations are more difficult to obtain after 12 weeks.
At the moment, only part of the cost of ultrasound procedures is refunded. The rebate will be lowered from $85 to $65 for women whose pregnancy is less than 12 weeks, and increased from $100 to $127 for later in pregnancy.
Bishop denies the ALP's claim that the money saved is to cover a loss in revenue from radiologists' alleged abuse of the refund system for magnetic resonance imaging scans, revealed late last year.
Australian Medical Association national president David Brand said that the organisation had been excluded from negotiations over the scan cuts. "The only people likely to suffer [are] patients", he said.
The present average charge for an ultrasound is $150. Already, this makes having an ultrasound difficult for most women. Increasing the cost will make access to the information that women need to make an informed choice about their pregnancy even more expensive and inaccessible.
This cost should be covered completely by the government, as should all expenses relating to pregnancy and, for that matter, every other health concern. By reducing the rebate on ultrasound testing, the government is shifting more of the health funding burden onto the users of services. In this case, this affects the majority of women who have a pregnancy, yet women make up the bulk of those living in poverty in this country, and are least likely to be able to afford to spend more on health.
Many of the Coalition government funding cuts affect women disproportionately, as women are the social group who have to make up for the lack of services. Funding cuts to public services that care for the elderly, the sick and the young mean that this care falls back onto the family unit, invariably onto the women. Combined with a massive attack on child-care accessibility for most women, the options women have in their lives are diminishing.
Modern technology has opened up the possibility of women having more control than ever before of their reproductive lives. The Coalition government's tightening of restrictions on who can access this technology and for what purpose is a direct attack on the right of women to fully control their lives.
By Margaret Allum