Encouraging Australians to maintain their health during pandemic

MTAA is proud to be a member of The Continuity of Care Collaboration (CCC). The CCC is advocating for people to continue with their health management during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our aim is to communicate the importance of ongoing health care and maintenance, and not to allow the pandemic to prevent this. CCC member organisations represent the broad healthcare ecosystem ranging from industry associations like MTAA through to single issue patient groups. 

The CCC is advocating for people to continue with their health management during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Patient safety and continuity of care is extremely important, particularly for patients with chronic and complex diseases, vulnerable populations, the elderly and immunocompromised. There are mounting concerns that Australians are not maintaining their regular healthcare engagements for existing chronic conditions.  People are putting off seeing their general practice team, having a test, and managing their medicines due to fears of contracting COVID-19 or burdening the health system. 

During the first COVID-19 wave the pathology sector, saw a 40% drop in testing – equivalent to over 60,000 Australians per day not getting tests vital to manage their healthcare. This is an indicator with widespread implications that could put Australians' long-term health at risk. Cancer Australia has reported a 40 per cent drop off in cancer referrals this time of year. This will potentially increase the rates of later stage cancer diagnosis in the future, affecting patients' treatment options and putting increased pressure on our health services. Australians' long-term health status could be severely impacted if people do not maintain regular engagements with their healthcare professionals – we need to act now to find out more please visit https://continuityofcare.org/