At a meeting of the Chiropractors Association of Australia (CAA) in May of this year, Federal Minister of Health Dr. Carmen Lawrence spoke of the future of chiropractic and health care generally. To quote from her speech:
"The most effective way for chiropractic services to be included within Medicare is to demonstrate that chiropractors can work in the system in the same way as other health professionals with equal or greater cost effectiveness. I appreciate that such evidence of effectiveness for chiropractic in some areas such as lower back pain is accumulating." "It's been argued the academic literature that is in the USA and Canada, chiropractors have traded off claims to treat a wide range of illnesses for recognition and funding for care of a narrower range of practice where there is clear effectiveness. This may be a strategy you may wish to embrace but it certainly is one that appears to be somewhat successful in getting it recognized in those countries. And it may go some way for chiropractors in Australia, but I wouldn't want to necessarily preclude the subsequent widening of practice when the evidence is found to support it."
"I am very concerned about the movement by some sections of the medical profession to take on practice and procedures for which they are not well trained whether it is spinal manipulation or family therapy. The average GP, I taught many of them and have a lot of respect for them, is not necessarily well placed to provide those sort of services, and yet they are at the moment being encouraged to do so because of financing and funding methods that we have. I am very keen to break down some of those barriers to your practice and to remove people from undertaking procedures who are not qualified to do so."
From our perspective, the minister's statements are very encouraging to our profession.
At the same meeting, CAA Executive Director Dr. John Sweaney offered to develop a proposal for grant funding for a pilot project to demonstrate that chiropractic should be included in the public health care system.
It was recently announced in one of Sydney's newspapers that a new national health union has been formed to lobby for an expansion of Medicare to cover alternative treatments, including chiropractic services, herbal medicine, massage and acupuncture therapy, naturopathic treatment, and nutritional and environmental medicine. Already this group has more than 250,000 members from about 70 health groups. The groups convener, Dr. Ian Brighthope, said that he would be lobbying hard for change in health perceptions in the lead up to the next Australian federal election. He said the health think-tank network was formed as an alternative to groups such as the Australian Medical Association. This is good news for the chiropractic profession in Australia.
As our last few articles have stated, the public's perception of chiropractic in Australia is more in the mainstream of health care and not just an alternative. It is yet to be ascertained how we would fit in the Medicare system. The big fear among chiropractors who are wary of getting into the Medicare system is they might try to control how many times we can see a patient and that Medicare will have too much control on our treatment regime, but it will open up a new client base for us. Patients will benefit the most from our inclusion in Medicare, and that is the most important factor.
In other news, it was "Chiropractic Awareness Week" in Australia at the end of May. Public awareness was good, with many newspaper articles featuring chiropractic presented throughout Australia. In New South Wales, a two-week television advertising campaign was launched on the two major networks, channel 9 in Sydney, and channel 7 in the rest of NSW. The response to these ads were very positive from the general public who telephoned the association saying that they were very impressed with the quality. The state members agreed prior to the commencement of the campaign to a $500 levy in which over $120,000 was gathered. Not all was spent on this campaign but will be applied to the next one. NSW is the third state behind Victoria and Western Australia to use TV advertising. Making the public more aware of what chiropractic is all about is needed and we hope it will continue.
At the beginning of June the New Zealand Chiropractors Association held their centenary conference. Over 900 people attended the first night, which was patient appreciation night. Local chiropractors were asked to purchase tickets and gave them to their patients. The conference was held in Auckland and Reggie Gold, a frequent speaker in the "land of the long white cloud," was the evening's special orator. The next day the conference was officially opened by the mayor of Auckland. He won over the audience when he said that all patients seeing medical practitioners should only do so on a referral from a chiropractor.
An impressive presentation on the development of the new chiropractic school in Auckland was given by its director, Dr. Jim Stinear. Named the New Zealand Chiropractic Association Centre for Chiropractic (NZCACC), the school is modeled on the Macquarie University chiropractic education philosophy. The NZCACC and Macquarie University have developed a very close working relationship which will only get better.
At the conference, it was agreed that a public education levy of $1,750 be adopted. Dr. Brett Ireland presented a professional quality TV advertisement for chiropractic. The production and support material were very impressive, and the New Zealand Association now has an excellent package to give to its members.
A proposal has been circulated by the Council of Australian governments and the government of New Zealand as a discussion paper outlining a proposal for the mutual recognition of standards for goods and occupation involving the Australian states and territories and New Zealand. The proposed trans-Tasman mutual recognition would provide (subject to certain exemption) that someone registered to practice an occupation in any state or territory would carry out an equivalent occupation in New Zealand or vice versa.
A reformation of the Sports Council of Australia has been established with Dr. Dale Tichareson as president. This council takes over from the one that Dr. Noel Patterson formed many years ago. It will be modeled after the ACA Sports Council. Our council will include, PR, education and research, systems and products, ethics, and full networking. What the council hopes to achieve is the uniformity in Australia with respect to how chiropractic is portrayed to the public, and enhancement of sports performances by Australia's leading athletes. All members of the sports council will have to be properly attired and adhere to a strict code of ethics, similar to the FICS. The council will have more punch when approaching sporting bodies in providing chiropractic services. As the Olympics for the year 2000 will be in Sydney, Australia, the sports council will be well placed to provide at least two chiropractors from other countries. In ensuing articles, we will let you know the progress of this council.
Finally, Australia celebrated the arrival of Dr. Keith Innes and David Seaman for two seminars, the first in Adelaide on August 12-13, and the following week in Sydney on August 19-20. We were in attendance in Hawaii for the Advanced MPI seminar where both Dr. Innes and Dr. Seaman spoke, and we know the Australian practitioners will be in for a great seminar: one not to miss. In future articles we will detail the response to these two great speakers. We hope our cold weather (which is in full force) is not so bad for them.
George Dragasevich, DC
Orazio Trevisan, DC
