But there’s still a long way to go, with other women’s health measures neglected.
“Women’s health is not a boutique issue or a question of special interest. It is a national priority,” treasurer Jim Chalmers told the nation last night.
The government has earmarked $792.9 million over five years from 2024-25 specifically for women’s health, focusing mainly on reproductive health.
The Women’s Budget Statement says this is in response to recent Senate inquiries on universal access to reproductive healthcare and issues related to menopause and perimenopause, with the government supporting, at least in principle, 36 recommendations from the first inquiry and 16 from the second.
As outlined neatly in The Conversation, there is a gender health gap. Women have more chronic health problems than men do, they wait longer to get a diagnosis, see the GP more often and have more prescriptions to fill. They make more use of allied health, for which subsidies are limited.
Nearly half have chronic pelvic pain, and one in seven will eventually get a diagnosis, after around eight years, of endometriosis by the age of 49. There is no rebate for an MRI for pelvic pain.
Medical research tends to focus on men, so treatments can be less effective for women.
“Across all forms of care, women face disproportionally higher financial costs and significant barriers to access due to a range of factors, including sex and gender bias in the health system,” the Women’s Budget Statement 2025-26 says.
“As outlined in Working for Women and the National Women’s Health Strategy 2020–2030, socioeconomic status, higher health care expenses, and limited availability of treatment options all hinder women’s access to affordable, targeted care, reflecting implicit and explicit bias against women within the system.”
That $793 million (some of which has already begun to be spent) includes listing three additional commonly used contraceptive pills and a new endometriosis treatment on the PBS, $134.3 million to cover up to 150% higher Medicare rebates and more bulk billing for the insertion and removal of IUDs and contraceptive implants (long-term reversible contraceptives, or LARCs), including by nurse practitioners, and $25.1 million for the establishment of eight new LARC Centres of Training Excellence.
From 1 July there will be a new Medicare rebate for GP menopause consultations and funding for clinician training in this area, the creation of national guidelines, and an awareness campaign ($26.3 million), as well as three new PBS listings for menopausal hormone therapies.
There will be $19.6 million in funding for 11 new pelvic pain and endometriosis clinics on top of the 22 already in existence, and expansion of their capability to provide specialist menopause and perimenopause support. Plus, from 1 November 2025, a new dedicated MBS ultrasound item comes into existence to support women with severe endometriosis.
And there is $109.1 million allocated for two national trials of pharmacy prescribing of contraceptives and “uncomplicated” UTI treatment to around 250,000 concession card holders.
The government has expanded PBS listing for a drug to treat HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer for those with a confirmed breast cancer gene (BRCA1 or BRCA2) mutation.
For prospective parents, the budget provides for earlier and increased access on the PBS for IVF patients to combination therapy follitropin alfa with lutropin alfa. Maternity services in the NSW Central Coast receive $10.0 million and Southern Tasmanian maternity services get $6 million for infrastructure and equipment upgrades.
“Recognising the importance of community-driven, strengths-based approaches for First Nations communities, culturally safe First Nations maternal health services will also continue to be delivered through initiatives like Birthing on Country, in partnership with the Aboriginal community controlled maternal health workforce,” the Women’s Budget Statement says.
Although there is $158.6 million over five years from 2024–25 allocated “to support research and translate medical research to clinical practice”, there is no specific allocation for research into women’s health. There are also no changes to allied health rebates.
Professor Susan Davis, endocrinologist and head of the Monash University Women’s Health Research Program, told HSD the PBS listing of third-generation contraceptive pills would make a big difference for the one in three women on contraception who were currently paying for their medication out of pocket. That’s a third of the 60% of Australian women taking contraceptives, who could now get eight months’ supply for the same cost as they were paying for one month, she said.
“None of them were on the PBS,” said Professor Davis. “And if you were a concession card holder, it was completely out of your reach.
“So putting them on the PBS is a really a big step, because these pills have been around for years, but not available at the same cost as other pills.
“Young and midlife women have all these extra costs they have to deal with that men don’t have to deal with. Menstrual cycles for a lot of women come at their financial cost, either the contraceptive cost or controlling the side effects, like getting migraines when you get your period or getting premenstrual depression. So having these pills that actually deal specifically with those issues is a big step.
“And for menopausal women, having the estrogen gel and the progesterone capsule come on the PBS addresses the socio-economic divide. I work in a public hospital, and I would have loved to have prescribed all of these things for my patients, but the patients can’t afford them.
“So this creates equity. I can prescribe the same things for patients I see in private and public.”
Professor Amanda Henry, program head of Women’s Health at The George Institute and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the Faculty of Medicine at UNSW Sydney, told HSD it was “great to see women’s health finally receiving more attention”.
“Unfortunately, there’s still primarily a focus on so-called reproductive medicine — ‘bikini medicine’, and we really need to capture the full spectrum of women’s health needs across the life course,” she said.
The George Institute wants increased funding for women’s health research and a requirement for more representation of women and LGBTQIA+ populations in clinical trials.
Related
“The biggest killers of women are chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease, type two diabetes, kidney disease, but we know that those things are often undertreated, under diagnosed, and may present differently in women versus men. So although women live longer, they live more years in poorer health,” said Professor Henry.
“For example, we’ve got after pregnancy a single Medicare funded visit at six weeks postpartum for a health check, and then it’s all about the baby after that.
“In women’s health across the board, there are often more of those complex consultations and longer consultations, which are very underfunded generally.”
Professor Henry welcomed the ultrasound rebates for endometriosis.
“One big problem with ultrasounds across the board in women’s health is the under costing and under valuing of that in terms of the time that it takes.”
The women’s health budget measures were “a good start”, said Professor Henry.
“Starting to appropriately run a gender lens over items like ultrasound and appropriately valuing them – absolutely that helps. But I think we’re just at the beginning of that journey. There’s a long way to go.”
People With Disability Australia also noted that there were no specific measures for women and non-binary people with disability.
“We’re being treated as a ‘diversity footnote’ and not a targeted population with the funding to match. This is a big miss. If measures don’t name or focus on our community they won’t work for us,” PWDA board director Steph Travers told the press.
And the ACCRM noted that the budget did not address the ongoing closures of rural maternity services.
“Each closure weakens health in rural and remote communities just a little bit more,” said ACCRM president Dr Rod Martin.
“There has been no commitment to turn this around. Targeted funding is desperately needed to attract and retain the rural maternity workforce, including rural generalists skilled in obstetrics and anaesthetics, to ensure women in rural and remote communities can access safe, high-quality maternity care close to home.”
“I think we’ve got a long way to go on our priority populations,” said the George Institute’s Professor Henry.
“I don’t think we can assume that funding for the broader women’s health pool, or women’s population, will necessarily translate into the same sorts of results or improvements for First Nations women, and I would say the same in terms of some other priority populations, such as our migrant and refugee population and those living rural and remotely, which, of course, also intersects with our First Nations population as well.”