AMA President Dr Danielle McMullen provides members with the latest from the national AMA.
Hello, and happy Friday!
It's been another huuuuge week for me as AMA President, and a huge week for Australian health. We finally had the legislation introduced in parliament to formally create the long-awaited Australian Centre for Disease Control (something we have been advocating for at the AMA since 2017) which will open on 1 January 2026. The pandemic showed just how caught-short we were in many ways, and an Australian CDC will ensure we are prepared for whatever curveballs the future throws our way.
This week is Women's Health Week and I had the absolute pleasure of being a part of the Women's Agenda 2025 Women's Health & Wellbeing Summit on Tuesday as part of a panel exploring 'The Misinformation Minefield'. It really is a scary world on social media feeds, with reels undermining decades of public health advice, and scaring women into unnecessary treatments, or away from harmful ones. Not all of this is intentional harm, and peer opinion has a really important place in healthcare, but some of this is driven by profit, or even AI scams, and it's increasingly hard to pick.
We went out strongly this week to call out the voices of vested interest loudly (and falsely) suggesting Australia's tobacco excise should be reduced to help curb the rise of the illegal tobacco trade. We have been world-leaders in tobacco control for decades and we can't afford to back down now. We need to separate the fact from the fiction and separate the distinct issues here, namely, that tobacco use is a public health issue while illegal tobacco is a criminal issue, and a product linked to organised crime. It simply makes no sense to say crime is winning, therefore let's give up on health. We must ensure we stay the path on this one! We need to work across the country to strengthen enforcement of illicit tobacco sales - there are mechanisms proven to work that we could adopt. The battle against smoking-related illness is certainly not lost and we'll keep fighting.
We've had a few things to say on immunisation lately too, recognising we're in the midst of a huge whooping cough outbreak and putting out a reminder to pregnant women and families to be vaccinated . Unfortunately, across our broad NIP program we are seeing a fall in vaccination rates, which is frankly a horror story. On this theme, we released our updated Position Statement on Immunisation this week which reminds Australians that their GP is there to discuss any questions they have about immunisation, and calls on the government to better support GPs and our teams to continue delivering comprehensive population vaccination programs.
We also came out this week calling for urgent reforms to support International Medical Graduates (IMGs) following our work with IMG members and the release of a report with our survey and research findings outlining their lived experiences, the systemic barriers they encounter, and opportunities for reform. IMGs make up more than half of our rural medical workforce, more than half of our GPs, and more than 30 per cent of our non-GP specialists. We must support our IMG workforce to have a safe, rewarding and enjoyable career here in Australia.
We also had our mental health committee meeting this week with really great discussions about what we should prioritise when advocating for a system that supports all people with mental illness - from the very mild, to the severe, chronic and complex. We talked about how to support GPs, psychiatrists, paediatricians and other doctors working to provide best practice mental healthcare. And in the face of a number of private mental health hospital closures, how to support mental healthcare in the private sector. There is much work to be done!
I hope you have a great weekend - wishing all of the dad's out there a Happy Fathers Day, and also thinking of those of you for whom it may be a difficult day.
Take care, and see you here next week!
