Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Any suggestion that this is about playing politics in relation to hyperbaric treatment must be strenuously challenged. I have great regard at a personal level for Senator Polley, but the government's approach on this is fundamentally wrong.

If anyone is going to be accused of playing politics, accuse me, because I actually put up this resolution, which was co-sponsored by every other non-government side of this chamber—the Australian Greens, the coalition and the DLP. So let us put this in perspective: this is not about politics. This is about a wide range of political views coming together to say that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way the government has withdrawn Medicare funding for those seeking hyperbaric treatment for non-diabetic ulcerative conditions.

It is very clear that a mistake has been made here by the government by withdrawing Medicare funding. It is a penny-pinching, cost-saving exercise that will have significant implications for patients around the country who need this form of treatment that in some cases can be life saving and can actually mean the difference between people requiring an amputation or not. That is what is at stake here, and I am afraid that the government has made a fundamental mistake in the way that they have dealt with this. They should have intervened and they failed to intervene.

If we look at what the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association has said, they make it very clear that there has been a flawed clinical pathway followed in the analysis of outcomes and costs, and that the hyperbaric oxygen treatment was proposed as a second-line treatment in the applicants' submission, yet it was analysed as if it were a first-line treatment. There are also fundamental issues here in terms of a denial of natural justice in relation to this withdrawal of Medicare funding. Also, the study that the government relied on—and I will be corrected if I am wrong—was in the order of 16 to 18 patients and undertaken in Scandinavia. One of the authors of the report said, 'I have been misquoted,' effectively. So the logic is fundamentally flawed in what the government has done.

I agree wholeheartedly with the comments of the chair of the committee, Senator Ryan, because I think we did hear some valuable evidence. I think that the devastating blow for this decision made by MSAC and the government's position has been given by Dr Deeble, the architect of Medicare, and a man to whom I think every Australian taxpayer owes a debt of gratitude. He designed a very good healthcare system and has saved literally hundreds of billions of dollars for Australian taxpayers over the years because of the architecture and the design of the Medicare system.

Dr Deeble has made it absolutely clear that the government has made a mistake here. This is a man who has been trusted by both coalition and ALP governments over many years in terms of good public policy in health care. In his quite devastating critique of the MSAC decision and, by extension, the government's maintaining of that position, he has made it absolutely clear that a mistake has been made. So I would genuinely and sincerely urge the Minister for Health, Minister Plibersek, to reconsider the decision that has been made because the impact it will have on patients across the country could potentially be devastating. This is a line of treatment for people with a non-diabetic ulcerative condition. On average, people only get this treatment after 19.9 months of other treatments not working. It is not a first line of treatment: that is one of the fundamental mistakes that MSAC made in this assessment.

I would urge anyone who is interested in good public health policy to fundamentally reject what MSAC has done and to urge the government to reconsider its position. The consequences of this decision will be that there will be people who will ultimately require more expensive treatment because their conditions will not clear up, whereas with hyperbaric treatment there is a good chance that in many cases their conditions will clear up. There will be people who will require amputations because this treatment is being denied to them. I am very grateful to Dr Williamson from the Royal Adelaide Hospital's hyperbaric treatment unit who wrote to me and approached me about this issue. I am grateful for the good work that he does and that other hyperbaric units do across Australia. The public system does terrific work and there are private hyperbaric units as well.

Fundamentally, a mistake has been made. That mistake has been confirmed by no less than the architect of Medicare, Dr John Deeble, and that mistake must be rectified. The government's approach on this is wrong. I would respectfully urge them to reconsider their approach, and the sooner they do the better off hundreds of patients around the country will be, because otherwise they will be denied a treatment that is often the last resort to solve a chronic health condition that in some cases can, tragically, lead to amputations.

Question agreed to.