Parents of children diagnosed with ADHD, autism and anxiety are reeling from the news that an Australian paediatric service will stop prescribing medication because it cannot recruit enough specialist doctors to keep up with the overwhelming demand.
Patches, which was established in 2012 by a paediatrician and former Young Australian of the Year James Fitzpatrick, said it would continue assessing and diagnosing children but stop managing medication for those who have already been diagnosed.
Dr Fitzpatrick said in a statement it was a difficult decision that was made with regret.
"Due to critical shortages of paediatric capacity, our medication prescribing service was not able to be maintained," he said.
Dr Fitzpatrick says Patches, which has nine clinics across the country, has been working with affected families to help them transfer the management of their medications to a GP or other service.
But GPs in Western Australia are not allowed to prescribe the restricted medications used for treating ADHD unless the child continues to see a specialist doctor at least once a year.
Meds as essential as glasses: parent
Perth mother Rachael Yong, whose 11-year-old son has been on medication for ADHD through Patches for three years, says she felt "sick" when she received an email about the decision.
"It's really scary, considering he's going to high school next year," Ms Yong told Nadia Mitsopoulos on ABC Radio Perth.
"I would liken [the ADHD medication] at the minute, at his age, to putting on glasses.
"He's struggling with regulating his brain and the medicine is able to help him to take a little bit more control so that we can learn together how to live with ADHD."
Even before the Patches announcement, parents of children with ADHD and autism in WA have already been expressing desperation amid long waiting lists of up to 18 months to see a paediatrician.
Many are not taking new clients at all.
Ms Yong said her son's treatment could end within six months if she could not secure an appointment with a paediatrician, and she did not expect that would be possible.
"Unless … somehow some miracle occurs," she said.
"I'm just like every other family in Perth at the minute that's trying to get on a paediatric waitlist.
"We just dropped right down to the bottom of the queue."
Another WA mother Melissa Ford is struggling to access a paediatrician to help with her daughter's emotional dysregulation — a core trait in ADHD.
"A lot of people don't understand," Ms Ford said.
"She's so confident but you don't see the child sitting on the floor crying for 30 minutes because her shoelaces aren't the same length."
Having been diagnosed with ADHD herself, as well as her son, Ms Ford is desperate to get her daughter to a paediatrician or other specialist for assessment and treatment.
But she has been unable to secure an appointment for her daughter and says almost all of the city's paediatricians have closed their books to new clients.
Systemic change needed
Perth paediatrician Lana Bell says WA needs to create more training positions for paediatricians to address the shortage over the long-term.
In the meantime, Dr Bell says short-term solutions are needed to not only improve access for families seeking specialising paediatric care, but to "take the load off the practitioners who are facing this on a daily basis".
She suggests a different public-funded paediatric care model that has a bigger emphasis on the role of allied health professionals.
"So assisting the public system through people who aren't paediatricians, like nurses, OTs, speech therapists, psychologists," Dr Bell said.
"And funding them to work alongside the paediatricians."
