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Health care must be a priority for this federal election. And within health care, neurological conditions must be prioritised.
Putting health first has long been recognised as an ethical imperative by politicians. The Conservative British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli noted in 1872 that “the first consideration of a minister should be the health of the people.”
As we shift our focus towards the federal election, it’s worth taking a step back to remind ourselves — and our politicians — what is most important to us as a nation.
Yes, “it’s the economy, stupid.” But as James Carville, the Clinton strategist who coined the phrase, shrewdly added, “Don’t forget health care.”
That advice remains sound. Here in Australia, poll after poll also sees health care put at the top of voters’ lists of most pressing concerns.
Medical research is an integral piece of the story that no politician can ignore. The 2024 Research Australia Opinion Poll revealed strong public support for government investment in health and medical research, with 78.2% of respondents advocating for increased funding.
Research is hope. It is future health care for those who currently have no effective treatment or cure.
The burden of neurological disease
Scanning the state of Australian health care to assess what we are doing well, what we could be doing better and identifying areas that need more urgent attention; most pathways lead to brain health.
To effectively address this problem, we must identify the contributors and measure the burden of disease imposed by brain and neurological disorders on our nation.
The burden of disease is a measure of how much illness, disability and death a group of diseases causes a population and combines the years of healthy life lost due to living with ill health, together with the years of life lost due to dying prematurely.
In Australia, we have an abundance of burden of disease data, with the glaring exception of data on neurological conditions.
While we have detailed data for cancers and cardiovascular diseases, there is no national dataset for one of our leading causes of disease burden: neurological disease.
This poorly characterised neurological disease grouping is among the top five disease groups causing burden in Australia.
While the burden for cancers and musculoskeletal and cardiovascular disease has declined over the past 20 years per capita, it has increased for neurological diseases, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) Australian Burden of Disease Study 2024. Dementia is now the leading cause of death among Australian women and is projected to become the leading cause of death for all Australians over 75 years of age. Our geographical region, the Western Pacific, will be responsible for more than 50% of the global disease burden linked to dementia, an alarming statistic.
Multiple sclerosis is another example of this problem. Over the past two decades, MS Australia independently commissioned three reports, showing that the prevalence of multiple sclerosis has risen and accelerated at an alarming rate in Australia.
The World Health Organization has recognised the neglect shown to neurological conditions; and in 2022 released a global action plan for these conditions, which affect more than three billion people, or one in three, across the globe.
Although we have no national database, the Neurological Alliance Australia (NAA) estimates that more than seven million Australians are living with one or more of the 600 neurological disorders, covering everything from dementia to stroke, Huntington’s to Parkinson’s, motor neurone disease to multiple sclerosis and many more. That’s one in four Australians affected by a neurological condition.
A call for investment
While the AIHW has been given some resources to commence preliminary work on a national neurological disease dataset, there is much more to do.
The NAA, which represents almost 40 neurological non-profit organisations, is urging our political aspirants to commit to the development of a national action plan, to sit under the global neurological action plan.
We need investment in a national neurological research mission, funded under the Medical Research Future Fund, to drive collaboration and supercharge efforts to develop much needed tools for early detection and treatment.
The NAA is also calling for:
- investment in prevention through a brain health initiative;
- equal access to assistive technology;
- better integration of aged care, health and disability services; and
- an end to National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) age discrimination.
Health care must be a priority for this federal election. And within health care, neurological conditions must be prioritised. Why? Because neurological conditions are on the rise in Australia, as they are worldwide.
Yet, the sad truth remains that neurological conditions, as a disease group, have simply not been given the resources, and the recognition that the other leading disease groups (eg, disease groups like cancer and cardiovascular disease) have, quite rightly, been accorded.
A commitment to funding neurological care and research priorities will reduce the economic cost to the Australian economy, which currently exceeds an estimated $100 billion annually.
Of course, the personal cost cannot be monetised: chronic pain, loss of mobility and body function, failure of the mind, or in the case of a motor neurone disease diagnosis, a two-to-five-year life expectancy after diagnosis.
With one in four people bearing this cost in Australia, the network theory suggests that it impacts us all.
And it is worth bearing in mind that the impact is even greater when we recognise the very real and heavy burden on family and carers.
And while we can’t monetise it, we might be able to vote on it.
Now we need to hear what our own politicians have to say.
Rohan Greenland is the Chair of Neurological Alliance Australia (NAA) and Chief Executive Officer of MS Australia.
Professor Matthew Kiernan AM MBBS (Hons) PhD DSc FRACP FAHMS FAA is Chief Executive Officer and Institute Director of Neuroscience Research Australia, President of Brain Foundation and Scientia Professor of Neuroscience at University of New South Wales.
The statements or opinions expressed in this article reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official policy of the AMA, the MJA or InSight+ unless so stated.
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