The National Women’s Health Advisory Council will undertake an audit of the Medicare rebate system next year to investigate why rebates are higher for procedures for men, such as scrotal ultrasounds, than they are for procedures for women, such as internal ultrasounds.
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On Thursday, three weeks after the launch of this masthead’s campaign, the federal government pledged an additional $550,000 in funding for the council.
This is important work and it is probably not lost on the Albanese government that tackling medical misogyny is quite popular work, given the broad electorate it affects.
Tiers of government, professional bodies and regulators, must work together to create real change. It is good that the federal government wants to examine gendered disparity in the Medicare rebate system but what about differences in how women and men are treated in – state-managed – emergency departments? One survey respondent reported no longer trusting hospitals after having an ectopic pregnancy missed for 11 weeks.
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Eleven weeks lost by one of the 1100 – if not 111,000 or, indeed, 13.41 million – who Australia cannot afford to lose.
