On 6 April 2022 the Prime Minister promised to implement a world class national newborn screening program lifting the current number of diseases screened from 28 to 80 in 2023 as part of his election commitments to Medicare.
12 months later and he has handed over the funding to the states and territories but allowed the existing process of disease by disease application and state by state rollout to be entrenched. Further, he has empowered the committee that has recommended it is cheaper for babies not to be born than screened for diseases at birth to be the gateway for access in a process that takes at least 12 months per disease to complete. Under this process Australia will not screen for 80 diseases until at least 2050 and with no commitment to universal access across Australia. The postcode lottery and discriminatory diagnosis odyssey are both continuing. The election commitment costing clearly shows the program was to be to a once-off catch up review of 85 diseases screened for in the US and their applicability to Australia and rollout the 80 disease screening program across Australia in 2023. You cannot do a photo shoot with families that have lost their children or cite the suffering of delayed diagnosis as an adult with Pompe disease and then not do as exactly as you promised.
