LENGTHY wait lists for speech pathology has forced practitioners to try and be more innovative and to work smarter to meet demand across western Victoria, Julie Warren says.
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The OT Dynamics and Dynamics Kids director said increasing take-up of telehealth, driven by the pandemic, had been a big boost for reaching clients who would otherwise be forced to travel large distances to clinics in regional hubs, such as Ballarat.
But there were still plenty of clients who benefit more from face-to-face sessions.
This comes as many clinics were starting to close their books under demand pressure and while OT Dynamics has been able to keep its books open for speech therapy, the clinic was juggling waits of up to 12 months for new clients.
Speech pathologist Annabelle Guild said communication disability remained largely invisible but communication was a basic human right for a person to be able to fully participate in all aspects of the community.
Ms Guild said her clients were all ages, from children aged under-one to senior citizens. She said the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme had created an explosion in demand for speech pathology the past decade - but practitioners were still catching up.
"In the past speech pathology was only kind of funded through the hospital but now it's community-based funding," Ms Guild said. "Demand has always been there, just not always the funding - previously people paid out-of-pocket - and it's good it's more available to people but there's just not enough speech pathologists."
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Ms Guild and Ms Warren said telehealth had proven handy to reach more clients who, for example, might be frightened or uncomfortable to come to the clinic, especially those who were non-verbal. While for others, particularly children, looking at the screens might be distracting or they needed to work on social conversation and debating skills.
Ms Warren said the introduction of Federation University's speech pathology bachelor and master degrees were a "real asset to Ballarat" and should start make a good impact in regional Victoria.
Fed Uni introduced a bachelor degree with honours and the master, for those with education, nursing or health science backgrounds, this year. Previously the only speech pathology tertiary courses in regional Victoria were at La Trobe in Bendigo.
"We're taking clinical placements and having students here and working with clinicians," Ms Warren said. "Students are utilising the skills they've got to help work with clients and assisting us. Potentially there's work here when they've graduated."
Ms Guild said early referral to speech pathology was vital to ensure people could get the best communication help they needed. She said starting early, especially for children, could make "the world of difference".
Key facts about communication disability from OT Dynamics
- The Australian Bureau of Statistics has established that 1.2 million Australians have communication disability. Communication disability affects a person's ability to understand and be understood by others.
- Levels of limitation range from mild to profound and can be temporary or last a lifetime.
- Children and older people make up the majority of people with communication disability.
- Children are more likely to have profound/severe communication disability than older people.
- People with communication disability were less likely to have a non-school qualification (42 per cent) than people without communication disability (61 per cent).
- Thirty-eight per cent of people with communication disability are participating in the labour force compared with 80 per cent of people without communication disability.
- One in seven people with communication disability need formal assistance with communication.
- Half of all people who need formal assistance with communication have an unmet need for this assistance.
- Three in five people who have an unmet need for formal assistance with communication were children.
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