My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Calcuttin woman from Gadighal Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily os. It's Wednesday, the eighth of November.
I'm Zara.
A Senate committee has been looking at how to remove some of the barriers to receiving an ADHD diagnosis and support. We know this is something lots of people in the TDA community have experienced firsthand.
It's something that I struggled with for a very long time.
Yeah, a lot of hoops have jumped through. After seven years of therapy and seeing numerous different psychologists, psychiatrists and specialists, it was only last week I was finally diagnosed with ADHD.
So what did the report find and what recommendations it makes to improve the lives of people with ADHD here in Australia. We'll let you know in a deep dive but first sam what's making headlines this morning.
The death toll from ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas has reportedly exceeded ten thousand in Gaza and at least one thy four hundred in Israel. It comes one month after Hamas launched its attack on Israel. The United Nations has said one point five million people have been displaced in Gaza due to the conflict. The UN has repeatedly called for a ceasefire.
The Reserve Bank has raised the cash rate by zero point two five percent to four point three five percent. It's the highest the cash rate has been since twenty eleven and is the first rate rise under the new governor, Michelle Bullock. Continued inflation drove the RBA's decision for another rise.
Western Australian school students will face mandatory anti vaping programs. The program will be delivered to students from years five to seven and will show the dangers of vaping before their be in secondary school. Under new school behavior policies, students court vaping will also risk being banned from school, dancers, graduations and other activities.
And the good news A newly approved drug in England could prevent around two thousand cases of breast cancer and astrosol, which is a cancer treatment drug, was approved as a preventative drug this week. So, Sam, today we are talking about a Senate Inquiry report that is about ADHD diagnosis
and support. I think something that strikes me is that when we talk about something like a Senate Inquiry report, A, no one entirely knows what that means, but B it feels very intellectual and not really reflective of what it actually is like to live with ADHD. You do live with ADHD. So just to start this episode, I'd love to know what it means for you to live with ADHD.
I honestly think the most relatable way to explain ADHD, at least in my experience, is on a podcast app speeding up the podcast. It's just really noisy, and I've always struggled with feeling like I'm going at a different pace to the rest of the world.
I remember you describing that to me before you were diagnosed. Yeah, you were like, it feels like my brain's going two x. Well everyone else's.
I actually found I remember listening to a podcast on double speed for the first time and finding that experience incredibly validating, but I've had this kind of feeling since I was very little, and you know, I've had very jittery legs when I sit still and having really bad memory and not being able to keep track of things. You know, you say to me, I need you to do something. I needed to answer this email, and then as I literally write it down in my notes on
my appah straight away, I won't retain it. And sometimes I even feel like I'm having a full on conversation, sometimes even recording a podcast and having a whole nother conversation in my head about something totally different. And I've become very good at doing both at the same time. And I think that's why a lot of people describe ADHD as superpower.
Yeah, it's how you describe it.
Yeah, And you know, it means that I can move tasks really easily and really quickly and be in a million places at once.
Thanks for sharing that, Sam, I do think it's really beneficial, I guess, to lay that foundation when we're having a conversation like this.
Thank you.
Also noting though, that no two people's experience of ADHD the same, you know, and how it manifests few might not be the same. For anyone else, and that's one of the things that actually came out of the report that we're talking about today. It also found that there are major flaws in how ADHD is being treated in Australia. It found that people with ADHD were facing significant disadvantages in schools, in workplaces, and also when seeking medical help.
And before we get stuck into the recommendations and findings of the report, can we go over what we know exactly about ADHD.
Yeah, So ADHD is what's called long term neurodevelopmental disorder and as you described at the beginning, can make it difficult to concentrate or to control impulses. As we've heard from some of our audience, the spectrum of experiences of those living with ADHD is incredibly broad and it varies from person to person. But what we do know is that one in twenty Australians will receive a diagnosis, so that's around one million people.
But we also know it can be really hard to receive a diagnosis. What's that process currently.
Like, Well, we've heard it can be extremely complicated and extremely expensive. So in order to be diagnosed formally with ADHD, it requires a thorough behavioral assessment, which some psychologists can perform, but in most cases has to be carried out by psychiatrists or pediatricians, so specialists in children's medicine. They're the
ones that can make the ADHD diagnosis. And then again ADHD medication can only be prescribed by those specialists, so if you do get a diagnosis and you require medication, you are constantly having to go back to that specialist,
which of course we know to be very expensive. I do think it's important to note that ADHD traditionally has been more commonly diagnosed in boys, though we are hearing both from our audience but definitely more generally, that a lot of women are being diagnosed as adults now that there's more of an understanding of how ADHD manifests and certainly how it manifests in women and girls. This is something that came through in the messages we got from our audience.
I'm twenty one now, I've only just been diagnosed, despite being told for years by family and friends and teachers that I don't have it. That's just my personality and I'm just I'm just a procrastinator and lazy, and that's just who I am. And you know a teenage girl, It was never really considered by any of the people in my life that I could have it.
Okay, So what did this Senate Inquiry report actually find?
It found that there were unnecessary barriers that were limiting people with ADHD from accessing adequate care, so things like out of pocket costs associated with a diagnosis and with treatment, a lack of access to services including lengthy wait times, and challenges in regional and remote areas. The committee also heard research that the prevalent stigma associated with ADHD was
adding to the trauma experienced by people with ADHD. As a result, it said that more work needed to be done to understand the impacts of that stigma and particularly when it came to healthcare and education.
And what did the report suggest needs to happen to improve the way things work well?
There were fifteen recommends to overhaul ADHD services and to make them more affordable and more accessible for Australians with ADHD. It included recommending that the government increase Medicare subsidies for ADHD support. It also suggested that the government could add more ADHD medications to the PBS, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme which is a federal government scheme that basically subsidizes some medicines.
So those are some of the mechanical recommendations, you know, how to make the medicine more accessible, how to make wait times and costs associated with the diagnosis easier. What more did the reports say about how we can combat ADHD stigma?
It was definitely one of the points that was addressed in the committee's final report. So, you know, one of the ways that it suggested we could reduce stigma in this space would be a public health campaign. For example, we have public health campaigns around all sorts of things, and perhaps one around ADHD would be beneficial here. It also suggested that classrooms and workplaces could adopt better ways
to accommodate people with ADHDS. So I mean it could be things like flexible learning or working options if you're in the workplace, or it could be strategies to help concentration or focus or memory. Another thing that was recommended was minimum standards of neurodiversity training for educators and employers, So that was another option that could be adopted if the government goes through with it. In terms of things that could be done to shift the dial longer term.
The report recommended that the government should work with people with lived experience, as well as some advocacy groups to
develop a national ADHD framework. And this is something that we have spoken about in the context of autism because the government is currently working on an autism strategy, the federal government that is, and so this report was suggesting perhaps something like that that has structured recognition of what the lived experience is and what can be done by successive governments to address it was something that was laid out.
Alongside that, the committee also called for research funding so that scientists and health providers could work to better understand ADHD and how it affects brain function.
And we've got this report now, we can read it online. What happens to it now? What happens to those findings.
So when a Senate committee hands down a report, the government doesn't have to automatically accept all of the recommendations. So with any matter, the government takes time to review what the committee found and what the inquiry found and then can go away and decide which, if any, of the recommendations it will adopt. It'll be interesting to see how the government decides to move forward with this because it is something that lots of people are talking about.
Thanks for listening to this episode of The Daily Os. If you're listening to this podcast on Spotify, would love if you gave us a follow. It lets Spotify know that they should show our podcast to more peace. To follow, just tap on the follow button on our show page. We'll be back again tomorrow. Until then, have a great day.