March 20, 2025
113: Hot Take with Sonya and Johanna
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Updates on the rapidly changing landscape of menopause care in Australia and globally, focusing on revolutionary PBS changes making hormone therapy more affordable and the growing momentum around women's health initiatives.
• Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) now includes Estrogel, Prometrium, and Estrogel Pro (as of March 1st), with Slinder joining May 1st
• PBS prescriptions require specific coding - you may need a new prescription to access subsidised pricing
• FDA removed warnings from testosterone in the USA, highlighting the need for Australia to update outdated warnings on vaginal estrogen products
• The "So Hot Right Now" Medical Conference created an inclusive learning environment for healthcare providers to discuss menopause care
• Government funding for GP education ($1.5 million) lacks sufficient scope and evaluation mechanisms
• Dr. Lisa Mosconi leading a $50 million research program to reduce Alzheimer's in women by studying the relationship between protective hormones and brain health
• Jo launches Sheela Consulting - Unapologetic Advocacy, focusing on women's health policy and advocacy
If you've missed any of our expert conversations over the past two years, go back and listen, and please share them with anyone who needs this information.
To listen to my previous episode and interview with Assistant Minister Ged Kearney, please head to episode 110.
Links:
So Hot Right Now Medical Conference
Dr Lisa Mosconi - CARE funding
Australian Government $573M funding
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Chapters
00:00 - Welcome to A Hot Take
01:50 - PBS Changes & Prescription Requirements
10:54 - FDA Removes Testosterone Warnings
15:28 - So Hot Right Now Medical Conference
26:08 - GP Education Funding Concerns
31:41 - $50 Million Alzheimer's Research Initiative
38:27 - Sheela Consulting - Unapologetic Advocacy Launch
Transcript
WEBVTT
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Welcome to the Dear Menopause podcast.
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I'm Sonya Lovell, your host Now.
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I've been bringing you conversations with amazing menopause experts for over two years now.
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If you have missed any of those conversations, now's the time to go back and listen, and you can always share them with anyone you think needs to hear them.
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This way, more people can find these amazing conversations, needs to hear them.
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This way, more people can find these amazing conversations.
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Welcome to this week's episode of A Hot Take, with Johanna Wicks and myself here to bring you up to date on all of the hot topics that are currently impacting the menopause conversation globally, but, most importantly, here in Australia.
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Jo, welcome.
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Lovely to be back I think it's been just over a month and, wow, a lot has happened in that month.
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It's been a huge month.
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I'm going to mention upfront that I got COVID a couple of weeks ago.
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I lost my NOVID status.
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I had never had COVID up until dodged it for five years.
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I know I thought I was special Apparently not.
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Sonya, where did you get your COVID from?
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Well, jo, not that I want to apportion blame on anybody, and it isn't the takeaway that I was hoping for, but I did get sick after the so Hot Right Now weekend in Sydney.
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Basically, I had a big day on the Friday and the Saturday and woke up very, very unwell on the Monday.
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So, look, I hugged a lot of people.
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Thanks for all the hugs, but no thanks to the COVID.
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But why I wanted to mention that was because my voice is still doing strange and weird and wonderful things.
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So if I start to lose my voice or my voice sounds a bit scratchy or wobbly.
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That's why and I'll just let Jo do all the talking if that's what ends up happening Great, my favorite.
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Awesome, jo, we have got lots to talk about.
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What are we going to kick off with today?
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Well, I think it would be very timely to yet again kick off talking about the PBS, the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme, because since we last spoke, the 1st of March has been, which saw Estrogel, prometrium and Estrogel Pro hit the PBS and Yasmin, and then on the weekend there was another announcement from the Albanese government with more drugs for women's health going onto the PBS.
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It's just, I mean, it's sort of an unprecedented deluge of awesome medication.
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It really is, isn't it so?
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Slinder was the announcement, the big announcement that's going to impact most likely our perimenopausal menopausal listeners that is going to be available as of the 1st of may as a pbs priced drug therapy fantastic and I think what is super excited about this is after, um, the 1st of march.
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You know I've done a bunch of posts and different platforms around the fact that especially prometrium had gone onto the pbs.
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And but you, this is after the 1st of March.
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You know I've done a bunch of posts and different platforms around the fact that especially Prometrium had gone onto the PBS and you know sort of saying, you know, obviously we know there's some other amazing drugs out there and what would people like to see also on the PBS.
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And you know, out of all the responses I got, Slinder came up the most.
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The most.
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So I think there'll be a lot of very happy women across Australia, especially because Slinder is, so it really works from basically kind of your teenage years through to being almost post-menopausal, because it's sort of safe across all age cohorts.
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So it's a very versatile drug and that a lot of people who are progesterone sensitive can tolerate quite well.
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Can tolerate.
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Yeah, it's.
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It's fantastic.
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Now, whilst we are excited about all of these amazing um new drugs turning up onto the pbs being cheaper, there has been quite a bit of conversation, I've noticed around the need to get a new prescription to be able to be eligible for the new pbs pricing.
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So obviously now, since since we're past the 1st of March for your, as you said, prometrium, estrogel and Estrogel Pro, and something to bear in mind with Slinder coming up on the 1st of May so the correct procedure around this is if you have a prescription that is dated after the 1st of March, then you will be getting that automatically at the PBS rates.
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However, if your prescription was dated prior to that, some pharmacies and from what I can gather, most pharmacies are requiring you to get a new, updated prescription so that that can go through their system at the PBS.
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That the correct coding with the correct pricing attached to it.
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I thought it'd be good for us to just kind of talk through this a little bit, because I was surprised at the amount of conversation that came up around this from women.
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Me too, and I think you know I've just made an appointment for next week to go and get all my scripts updated because I use Estrogel and I think that it's a little bit tricky because obviously that it'd be lovely if all pharmacists could just honour your current script, and I believe a very small minority are able to.
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But it is very hard in the bureaucratic system that is, you know Medicare, to make sure you've got all your codes that are lined up and it is much easier just to have a script that has the correct codes on it.
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And the other thing I wanted to add to that, sonya, which is something I only learned when I was at the so Hot Right Now medical conference I hadn't realized that you need to specifically ask your doctor for a 60-day dispensing and then you get two months worth of the medication for $31, which blew my mind.
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I was so excited about the fact that you know especially, estrogel Pro is on PBS and is now $31 for both medications in their one pack.
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Yeah, yeah, to get two months' worth for $31 was just like oh, that is a huge cost saving.
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I know I did a post and this was when I realised the conversation that was coming up around the prescriptions.
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I did a post and this was when I realized the conversation that was coming up around the prescriptions.
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I did a post because I happened to.
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Actually, I think I ran out of my progesterone, my prometrium, about two days before the 1st of March, so I literally didn't get mine filled until after that date had ticked over.
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And look, I have a fantastic pharmacist, small, local pharmacy.
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I've got a great relationship with him, he knows what I do.
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So I was walking, I was like John, we did it, we're on the PBS and, um, you know, I did have a relatively new prescription, was probably dated more like the start of February, and he honored that for me and put it through at the new PBS pricing which you know.
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It was literally on the first or the second of March that I got down there to get that.
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Now I was paying $97.60, I think, or something like that, for my 60-day Prometrium and I got it at $31.60.
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And I was just beside myself.
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I was so excited, which is why I came up and photographed it and popped it onto my Instagram to let everyone know, but yeah, then the whole thing about the prescriptions came up.
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So I thought what might be a nice idea is if we just talk through the different options that you have available to you to actually get a new prescription, because I did notice that there was a lot of people that felt that it wasn't right that they would then have to go and book a whole new appointment with their GP and just to go in to just get their prescription updated.
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Now you and I are lucky enough to have a lot of friends that are GPs a lot of colleagues and we sit in different conversation groups with them, and it was interesting seeing the conversations going back and forth between them about how different GPs and different GP clinics were managing the need for updated prescriptions.
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I think one of the things that came up regularly was that there is an option for some clinics through hot docs, so if you're doing an online booking, you can put in that that you just require an updated prescription and then it might be that your GP just does a telehealth call with you that's bulk billed and just ticks the box that they have had a conversation with you and they will send you through via text.
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Often I get all my prescriptions now via text and updated prescription, and that there was also other GPs that were offering telehealth calls for their patients, rather than thinking that you have to book in to go in and sit in the waiting room and have this big long process of having a GP appointment and the cost that's associated with it.
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So I guess my takeaway from those conversations and being able to sit on the fence a little bit and hear both sides of the stories is, if you do require a new prescription, just reach out to your clinic and ask them what your options are.
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Don't assume that you're going to have to go in and see someone.
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Maybe just give them a call and ask them what your options are.
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Because the likelihood is that they've come up with a way of dealing with it, because there's been a lot of women talking about this.
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But it is important to note that if you are using like a 60-day prescribing for the first time, then you know that might be not as easy as just replenishing your script.
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Yeah, that's a good point.
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And, as Sonya just said, you know, it is definitely worth making sure that you get the two-month code, so that it is $31 a month is great, $31 for two months is even better.
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Yeah, and I suppose the only other thing I'd like to say around that is don't get cranky with your pharmacist, don't get cranky with your GP.
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You know this is a procedure and protocol situation.
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There is codes and ways that things have to go through computer systems for them to be able to dispense or to provide you with a prescription.
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The system's not ideal, we all know that.
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So just be patient, find out what your options are that are going to work best for you.
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But yes, it is likely that you are going to need to get a new prescription and then think about adding up all the money that you'll save from now until eternity.
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If you're going to take your MHT until death, like I am.
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And me.
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And that's a huge saving.
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And I think that's one of the things I did want to acknowledge.
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You know, I wanted to acknowledge that these are big changes and, you know, obviously there's a bit of political fostering going on which I've tried not to roll my eyes at, but I have others in the political space, sort of being like we're equally committed, and I have felt a sense of frustration because I was like, well, you were in government for 10 years and you didn't put any of these drugs on the PBS and you had plenty of opportunity in that 10 years to do so.
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So I do think that what the current government has done in getting so many new drugs on the PBS does matter.
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It doesn't mean that we stop asking for more.
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Like, when I did the little survey, people had mentioned Zoli as another contraceptive.
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That's really really, really impressive and really effective.
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Androfem is the only female testosterone in the world.
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A lot of chatter about intra rosa, um, which only came into Australia last year, but is a new, incredible vaginal estrogen, and DHEA, yeah, um and got to talk about a lot.
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It's so hot right now.
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So there are.
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There are drugs that need to go on the PBS, but this is kind of like an exciting start and it feels like there's real motivation behind it.
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Yeah, absolutely 100%.
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All right, so where does that lead us?
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What's next?
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Should we talk about the FDA removing, while we're talking about drugs and hormones and you just mentioned androfem and testosterone, you know, as part of that conversation.
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So if you have been a long-time listener, first of all, thank you very much.
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Secondly, you'll probably remember us talking about the push in the US specifically to remove the warnings, the black box warnings, from your vaginal estrogen, and we were talking about the fact that testosterone also falls into that kind of category as well.
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So the FDA have actually gone ahead and removed the, or they're going to remove I can't quite remember the process remove the warnings from testosterone in the US.
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Yeah, and there's quite a long story behind it, but there was a worry that men using testosterone in the US was contributing to their cardiovascular risk and bad or adverse cardiovascular outcomes, and so what actually happened is the FDA, which is the American version of the TGA, actually requested that there be a big randomized control trial looking at testosterone in men with a history of cardiovascular disease or a high chance of developing cardiovascular disease, and they actually compelled the four big companies that provide testosterone in the US to pay for it.
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To my understanding, it was a very extensive study, but I think it looked at over 5,000 men, of which half had a placebo and half were given testosterone.
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The results came back and showed that there is no increased cardiovascular risk or negative outcomes for that cohort, which was quite amazing, and I think that study concluded maybe just over 12 months ago, or the results were presented 12 months ago, but now a couple of I think it was even on the 1st of March.
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I feel like a lot happened on the 1st of March.
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Yeah, maybe it was yeah, because Kelly Casperson did a post while she was in Australia about it, and so the FDA has actually said right, we've taken into consideration this study and we now are going to take off the warnings around cardiovascular risk associated with testosterone for men in the US.
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But why this is, I think, important, samuel, which is what you're alluding to is it shows that things can change and that the labelling on medication can be updated or removed, in this case, when evidence comes to light.
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And I think one of the things that has been frustrating for women in Australia and the US and the UK and around the world is that there are I mean, who said it?
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I think was it Kelly who said there's 500 studies of vaginal estrogen in breast cancer patients that show that vaginal estrogen is safe to use and across 25,000 women.
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And yet we still have these really dire warnings on vaginal estrogen in Australia.
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And I think this is a call out to the government, to the TGA, that you can choose to take these non-factual risks out of these products, and I mean I don't think they don't have to have anyone ask them to do that.
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They could voluntarily decide to review the literature and do this off their own bat, hint, hint TGA.
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Or, you know, we could also look at having a bit of a campaign to Theramex, novonordic and Aspen, who make the three vaginal estrogen products in Australia and look at the three of those companies, could also approach the tga and say, hey, you know what, these warnings are outdated and we actually have evidence to the contrary.
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So can we please, can we please take that out?
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Um, so, yes, thinking about how we could make australia you know, we could lead the world in this because the us, the fda, has has not acted yet on vaginal estrogen.
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I mean, try not to think about sexism.
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Much testosterone for men oh yes, let's quickly fix that up.
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Vaginal estrogen for women so, trying not to look at it with that gender lens, they're failing.
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So yeah, jalia, wonderful government, get moving on vaginal estrogen.
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Another easy fix for you to do, yeah, another one that will make lots of women happy and also probably increase the uptake.
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Because I mean, sonya, I think you last time on the podcast we spoke about this you know you talked about how women have opened it up, looked at the pamphlet and gone oh, it says you're going to die of everything.
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It's actually really dire it is, it's awful, all right.
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So from there, I think, whilst we're kind of talking about government and, you know, things that they can do to improve outcomes for women, the um conversation that I had recently with jed carney when she was a guest on my podcast and one of the topics that we talked about was the part of the 573 million dollar pledge was to provide education to GPs, to upskill our clinicians, because, as Ceri Cashell said so beautifully on her Instagram the other day, it's great to make all of these therapies and these drugs more accessible and more affordable, but let's educate the people that are going to prescribe them.
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Yes, because there are so many GPs who won't prescribe.
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Who still have reservations.
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Let's put it that way.
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Okay, so we wanted to talk about two things.
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We want to do a quick debrief from the medical conference that was a part of the so Hot Right Now weekend.
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I didn't attend, but you did Want to talk about what I want to hear from you because we actually haven't spoken about this yet what it was like to be in the room, what you felt the energy and the vibe was from the doctors that attended.
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There was a huge online cohort as well and then perhaps feed that into what the government could consider doing when it comes to apportioning the funding for that GP education.
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Oh gosh, you're right.
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A quick conversation.
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I have a lot to say on this, sorry.
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Okay, let's start with so Hot Right Now.
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So the reason I was at the medical conference because obviously I'm not a medical practitioner is I was supporting Healthy Hormones, who were the organisers and the hosts of that component of the so Hot Right Now extravaganza weekend.
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So the medical conference was held on the Sunday after the event at the Opera House and it was done in the Hyatt Regency.
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So we had, I think, 250 people attend in real life and I can't remember I think it was around 500 online, but I can't actually remember that off the top of my head and it was like nothing I have been to before.
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So I've been lucky enough.
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In my, when I was working in a pharmaceutical company, I got to go to an international menopause society meeting in Portugal.
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Two and a half years ago I got to go to an International Menopause Society meeting in Portugal two and a half years ago.
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I've been to two Australasian Menopause Society conferences and you know I learned a lot at all of those conferences.
00:17:55.755 --> 00:18:04.548
But I think what was so striking about the so Hot Right Now medical conference was the energy and it was just this incredible buzz?
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I mean, you were there at the Opera House.
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You felt the buzz in the audience.
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Oh my gosh.
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It was very similar to that.
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It had been carefully thought out, all the speakers they had.
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I sat at the back because I was like you know, I've heard this all before.
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And then I was madly taking notes because I was learning so much more, even though I've listened to the podcasts of most of the presenters.
00:18:23.980 --> 00:18:27.957
I've been to so many of these types of conferences yeah, it was.
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And then they had an incredible space for sponsors to be able to talk to the attendees and that was just buzzing the whole day.
00:18:37.115 --> 00:18:40.645
Can I pause you there for a second and ask a question or clarify something?
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So for anybody that's listening, that's not familiar.
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The presenters at the medical conference on the Sunday were the same presenters that were on stage at the Opera House, so we're talking about Dr Louise Newson, Dr Kelly Casperson, Dr Vonda Wright, Dr Mary-Claire Haver.
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Was there anyone else that presented?
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Did we have some local representation as well?
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Yes, yes, so we had Dr Angela Kwong, we had Dr Odette Best, we had Dr Talat Uppel, so you can actually there is, the website is still up and it sort of goes through what everybody spoke about, and if you're a medical professional, it is going to be available to watch as webinars as well.
00:19:21.685 --> 00:19:29.208
There was a couple of things that came up again and again when I was talking to people in the breaks and at the end of the day was next year can we have it over two days?
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And the other main takeaway that I felt was really different from other medical conferences that I've been to was just the feeling of it being a room full of equals.
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There was no hierarchy.
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I had a number of GPs say that they didn't feel like they were spoken down to, that they were treated as lesser.
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In fact, Vonda Wright did this beautiful speech because a number of the speakers had two slots and spoke about different things, and when she came back I think it was after lunch or afternoon break to do her second slot, she actually stood up and said I just want to raise something.
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I've had so many lovely conversations here today, but I want to stop you now.
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I want to stop everyone who has said to me, I'm just a mere GP from using that kind of terminology and framing yourself in that way.
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I'm paraphrasing here, but she was basically like being a GP is exceptionally important.
00:20:26.269 --> 00:20:31.082
The fact that I'm an orthopedic surgeon does not make me better, you know, than you.
00:20:31.202 --> 00:20:31.923
It was, it was just.
00:20:31.923 --> 00:20:35.326
It was really nice, and I've never really heard that acknowledged before.
00:20:35.326 --> 00:20:38.478
So I think a lot of people that I spoke to were then sort of going.
00:20:38.478 --> 00:20:40.943
I just felt like I could ask anything.
00:20:40.943 --> 00:20:42.797
I felt like nothing was off the table.
00:20:42.797 --> 00:21:20.662
I didn't feel like I, you know, had to be anything other than who I was, and I think for a medical conference, that says quite a lot, and I think that the Healthy Hormones team are going to be, you know, evaluating the event and I really have my fingers crossed that they decide to continue on this path, because it gave an opportunity for so many practitioners to ask questions, and I think that's really important, you know, from a learning perspective, is that everybody has a different learning style, regardless of what your profession is and who you are, and whether you have a professor or a doctor before your name.
00:21:20.962 --> 00:21:35.965
You know, and there are many upskilling courses that are available online that are very simplistic in many respects and they are, you know, maybe kind of directed at the lowest common denominator.
00:21:36.406 --> 00:21:44.355
Yeah, yeah, and it doesn't give you the opportunity to ask questions beyond what you're being taught as you go through that online syllabus.
00:21:44.355 --> 00:21:50.807
You don't have contact with a real person that is actually operating in this field, day in, day out, every day.
00:21:50.807 --> 00:22:00.044
So, yeah, when you're able to learn in an environment where there is open conversation that's inclusive, it just takes learning to a whole other level, doesn't it?
00:22:00.634 --> 00:22:02.098
Yeah, I mean the excitement.
00:22:02.098 --> 00:22:07.439
The doctor, like the people I spoke to, were just like buzzing, and I think you've raised some really good points.
00:22:07.439 --> 00:22:20.640
There is, I think, one of the things that what healthy hormones are trying to do is they are trying to meet GPs where they're at and come up with ways of sharing information that works in the 21st century.
00:22:20.640 --> 00:22:25.169
So their platform healthy hormones is, you know, it's live.
00:22:25.169 --> 00:22:26.357
There's lots there are.
00:22:26.357 --> 00:22:34.721
There are specific spaces for GPs and other allied healthcare professionals to have conversations with each other in like real time about what's happening with patients.
00:22:34.721 --> 00:22:36.421
There's also fact sheets.
00:22:36.421 --> 00:22:42.721
They're putting together webinars which will be focused on very like sort of niche areas as well as the big picture areas.
00:22:42.815 --> 00:22:58.759
But it's once you get beyond your kind of average perimenopausal or menopausal woman where gps are often sort of left floundering, whether it be something like migraines or how it interacts with adhd or interacts with endometriosis or you know, there there is, there is endless.
00:22:58.759 --> 00:23:29.798
So it is it's this constantly involving space, and so then when you've got practitioners that are looking at all the research and wanting to make that available real time, and that's the other thing, like Wellfem, which is Australia's leading telehealth space for menopausal care, you know, I know they've got some really brilliant ideas about replicating the GP psychiatry line where, you know, gps could actually call a telehealth hotline manned by menopause experts to get real-time information if they've got a patient in front of them.
00:23:30.300 --> 00:23:48.182
Yeah, which really should be able to then eliminate that situation for a woman who goes in to see her GP and the GP doesn't know the answer and let's be honest, GPs don't have all the answers all the time at their fingertips, you know, and maybe it is a more complicated aspect of their perimenopause or their menopause experience.
00:23:48.182 --> 00:24:12.050
But if there is a service available, whether it's through a platform like Healthy Hormones, where they can jump into a chat with whoever's online and workshop the situation with them, or whether it's through, you know, a welfare call with a specialist, it just means that the patient, at the end of the day, should be getting a much better level of healthcare than just being told I don't know.
00:24:12.050 --> 00:24:13.576
Go Google it, sort yourself out.
00:24:13.958 --> 00:24:15.403
Go shop around, go try yeah.
00:24:15.564 --> 00:24:21.181
Or us always saying just go get a second opinion, go find another GP, which isn't as easy as it sounds for a lot of people.
00:24:21.642 --> 00:24:27.484
No, my GP has just moved to another part of Victoria and I'm like, oh, now I've got to start again.
00:24:27.484 --> 00:24:28.386
Really annoying.
00:24:28.386 --> 00:24:34.423
But yeah, it's not like those sort of appointments or those sort of skilled GPs are readily available.
00:24:34.423 --> 00:24:40.424
So I think there's a lot of exciting options for how the government could look at the GP medical training component.
00:24:40.424 --> 00:24:56.920
But I guess this is where, for all the excitement and how much love I feel like I have right now for Albanese government and Ged and Marielle and Katie and Mark Butler, I have got a little bit of less love around the GP education component.
00:24:56.920 --> 00:25:05.502
So you know, when we finally dug into the detail after that incredible announcement on the 9th of February, that is the weak link.
00:25:05.502 --> 00:25:17.621
So much of what we had hoped would be addressed after two and a half years of advocacy we've been doing is addressed, but the GP education is the weak link.
00:25:17.621 --> 00:25:18.502
It is.
00:25:18.723 --> 00:25:25.205
And that was something that I addressed with Jed, you know, as best as I could on when I sat down with her for an interview for a podcast.
00:25:25.267 --> 00:25:50.204
I'll link to the episode in the show notes so that if anybody didn't listen into that, they can go back and listen to it, because one of the things I really wanted to see if I could get some clarity from her on, was where would they be seeking providers of this GP education, and Ged made reference to a couple of existing providers that have received funding in the past that would perhaps be used again this time.
00:25:50.204 --> 00:26:00.266
The issue that I have with that and I spoke to Ged about this is, if we're using existing providers, can we unpack if that's actually been good education?
00:26:00.266 --> 00:26:01.147
Has it worked?
00:26:01.147 --> 00:26:20.606
Because, from my perspective, if we're sitting in this position now, where we know that there is a significant gap in education for GPs, that it hasn't worked and don't just hand out money to an existing provider because they've done it before, because we wouldn't be in this place if they'd done their job well in the first place.
00:26:21.295 --> 00:26:27.480
I think that's a really good point because it's that are you evaluating what currently exists and are you seeing what's working and what isn't working?
00:26:27.480 --> 00:26:34.964
And that's as someone who's been so embedded in this space for the last two and a half years and previously, from a personal perspective.
00:26:34.964 --> 00:26:43.500
My great frustration is how the hell did I get and I've spoken about this before how the hell did I get to 45 and have never heard the word perimenopause?
00:26:43.500 --> 00:26:57.182
Like, as someone who's worked in reproductive healthcare, whatever has been funded is not working if your incredibly health literate component of the population doesn't know anything about perimenopause and menopause.
00:26:57.182 --> 00:26:59.923
So you're going to have to try something new.
00:26:59.923 --> 00:27:02.944
You're going to have to look at what are the options out there.
00:27:02.944 --> 00:27:07.663
So the disappointing things about that 1.5 million, which, frankly, is simply not enough.
00:27:07.663 --> 00:27:11.336
But when you dig into it, it turns out it isn't actually really for GP education.
00:27:11.336 --> 00:27:15.005
It's for advertising GP education courses.
00:27:15.005 --> 00:27:18.358
It's not even developing new meaningful GP education.
00:27:18.358 --> 00:27:20.185
It's advertising courses.
00:27:20.326 --> 00:27:21.471
Now I listened.
00:27:21.471 --> 00:27:26.321
That podcast you did with Ged was fantastic and I loved it and I've shared it with lots of friends.
00:27:26.321 --> 00:27:38.415
But there was something in it where she said that some of that money would be going to tender, but then at Senate estimates.
00:27:38.415 --> 00:27:39.056
I think it was back in February.
00:27:39.056 --> 00:27:47.866
A question was asked at estimates about that money and where it would be going, and the Department of Health replied that it would be going to Jean Hailes and the Australasian Menopause Society, which indicates that it is not going to tender Jean Hailes and the Australasian Menopause Society which indicates that it is not going to tender.
00:27:47.886 --> 00:27:48.227
Yeah, and they are.
00:27:48.227 --> 00:28:00.763
Two previous existing providers that have received funding in the past are looking at receiving funding again, but the question needs to be asked, as you said is there an evaluation process in place?
00:28:00.784 --> 00:28:06.205
Yeah, I mean, if you actually look at the Jean Hailes funding, they've actually had $38 million over the last 10 years.
00:28:06.205 --> 00:28:12.419
Now, obviously that's for women's healthcare more broadly.
00:28:12.419 --> 00:28:13.682
They do brand themselves as leaders in the menopause space.
00:28:13.682 --> 00:28:20.561
So if they're the leaders in this space, how is that money being spent, how is it being evaluated and what are they delivering?
00:28:20.561 --> 00:28:26.891
Because, according to what we saw out of the Senate inquiry, gp knowledge absolutely dire.
00:28:26.891 --> 00:28:29.038
Community knowledge is absolutely dire.
00:28:29.038 --> 00:28:35.561
So maybe continuing to invest in the same old same old is not necessarily the best policy here and there's different ways you could do it.
00:28:35.561 --> 00:28:41.266
You could open it, have a tender, give it to 10 different players and after two years, evaluate which one's working the best.
00:28:41.266 --> 00:28:46.788
You know there are different ways of utilising new information and new modes of information.
00:28:46.788 --> 00:28:48.559
Like the world is changing so fast.
00:28:49.241 --> 00:28:50.526
Absolutely, you know.
00:28:50.526 --> 00:28:52.701
So we all got very excited.
00:28:52.701 --> 00:28:53.063
You know.
00:28:53.063 --> 00:28:56.234
$573 million is a lot of money.
00:28:56.234 --> 00:29:00.626
Everybody was referring to it as half a billion dollars, because that sounds even better.
00:29:00.626 --> 00:29:03.904
But let's dig into the detail.
00:29:03.904 --> 00:29:19.503
Let's get clear on what it all means and how it's going to be delivered, because those of us that have been working and advocating and lobbying for these things for so long need to make sure that the government is then trusted to get it right.
00:29:20.125 --> 00:29:32.730
Yeah, exactly, and I think that that is, you know, where the Department of Health said it was sort of a little bit like, well, who made that decision to A provide so little funding for GP education and B around where it was going to go.
00:29:32.730 --> 00:29:45.171
But on the plus because I'm always an optimist, sonya I see this as opening the door to a greater opportunity to design some really awesome, a bit like the community awareness campaign which has 12.8 million.
00:29:45.171 --> 00:29:51.683
So let's do something similar for medical education and let's look at a whole different you know raft of ways of meeting people where they're at.
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