The Tasmanian Liberal Party has announced two election commitments that promising to bring the state into alignment with the mainland.
As part of its election campaign, the Tasmanian Liberal party has announced two major commitments to general practice operations in the state.
The first of these was a pledge to introduce reforms to ADHD prescriptions and diagnosis that would allow for GP management.
This has been backed by both the Tasmanian Greens and Tasmanian Labor party, giving it bipartisan support.
Most mainland states have now either introduced or announced similar reforms.
The Liberal Party was also eager to announce the initiative for a free meningococcal B vaccination program.
As part of the program, the Tasmanian government would subsidise vaccines for Tasmanian infants from six weeks to 12 months old along with free catch-up immunisations for under two-year-olds.
The move has been praised by the RACGP, which has previously called for the program and has expressed interest in expanding the initiative to adolescents.
The program, which is estimated to cost $1 million per year, has also been recommended by the Tasmanian coroner.
“It’s also a smart financial investment for our government and health system,” RACGP Tasmania chair Toby Gardner said.
“Meningitis Centre Australia estimates that every case of meningococcal infection prevented can save the health system around $10 million over a person’s lifetime.”
That’s similar to overseas estimates.
“It also brings Tasmania into line with South Australia, Queensland, and the Northern Territory, which all have free meningococcal B vaccine programs in place for infants,” Dr Gardner said.
“We’ll continue advocating for the meningococcal B vaccine to be made free for adolescents aged 15 to 19 years old, who are also at higher risk.”
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Per the RACGP, the Tasmanian Liberal Party has historically been proactive in delivering on general-practice related policies and expects other parties to follow suit in backing the vaccination program.
As for why the program hasn’t been introduced sooner, RACGP Tasmania Child and Young Person’s Health chair Dr Tim Jones said a lack of funding has been the barrier.
“For us as doctors, it’s been a no brainer,” Dr Jones told The Medical Republic.
“We’ve known that we could immunise all of Tasmania for meningococcal B for less than the cost of treating two kids who get it.
“We have never had less than two cases a year in Tassie, and we still intermittently see kids who die of it.
“So this is a huge step, and one that makes complete sense.
“We are calling for unilateral support for the Meningococcal vaccine, we’re just waiting to see if that will be matched.”
