When Amanda Hardstone's three-year-old son walked to the park with his therapist for the first time, the central Queensland mum cried.
"It was overwhelming for me. I couldn't believe that he picked it up so quickly," she said.
Willow Holbert was diagnosed with hypotonic cerebral palsy, characterised by low muscle tone, in 2021.
After hours of research and calls to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Ms Hardstone found Willow a rare spot at a multidisciplinary therapy centre in Rockhampton.
"When we first started, he was unable to roll over, sit up, hold his head up in tummy time, crawl — any of those things he should have been doing by 11 months," she said.
Ms Hardstone said since starting occupational therapy, speech therapy and physiotherapy two years ago, Willow's cognition, communication and independence had improved "unbelievably".
But clinical psychologist Dianne Shanley said the waitlists for developmental assessments and access to therapy services were extensive due to a lack of specialists.
"It depends on the region and it depends on the service, but they [waitlists] can range anywhere from six months to three years," she said.
Willow's journey
Ms Hardstone said seeing Willow pull himself up to stand and take independent steps was surreal.
"He's a lot stronger in his muscles, he can pick food up himself, feed himself, carry his own toys around and he's also started to be able to walk in a walker," she said.
"Without the support of his therapists, Willow would never be where he is today."
Mr Hardstone said Willow was "really very lucky" to have access to the multidisciplinary team.
"But I know a lot of other mothers who are on waiting lists here and in other rural areas — that makes it very difficult for them," she said.
"A lot of the time the services aren't there, or the demand is so high that the waiting lists are so long that children aren't getting seen and they're not getting that early intervention that they need."
Waitlist blowouts
In 2015, speech pathologist Debra Bramhall opened AllSorts Developmental Services, which has been operating in Yeppoon, Rockhampton, and Mackay.
"The demand has increased in that people feel that they have a right for services now, which is great," she said.
But Ms Bramhall said enticing undergraduates and young people to be trained in the demanding yet rewarding profession continued to be a challenge.
Speech pathologist Gabi Rose said the demand for occupational and physiotherapists was high, but the clinic's longest waitlist was for speech services.
"We prioritise based on the clinical needs," she said.
"Some children won't wait very long, but some families will wait a couple of years for service.
"[While] they are still children that are in need, but it's unfortunate that there are children in a higher need."
The practice services more than 100 children requiring long-term therapy.
"The amount of referrals that we receive significantly outweighs the amount of spots that we open up," Ms Rose said.
"The only way to shorten the waitlist is to have more clinicians to provide the services.
"We've got the facilities for more clinicians, there's just nobody out there."
What needs to be done?
The Griffith University and Menzies Health Institute Queensland team, Changing Health Systems (CHESS), has co-designed a model which reduces the reliance on specialists and empowers GPs and other allied health workers to gather information.
"One solution to the problem is more specialists, but the specialists are expensive and there's not enough of them," Professor Shanley said.
The Yapatjarrathati Project, run in north-west Queensland, allows non-specialists to input information into an online system, which researchers says speeds up the diagnosis process by ensuring all information is available once the child sees a specialist.
"If we can share the load and figure out a way to support other health providers to contribute to that healthcare journey, then we can lessen the impact on waitlists," Professor Shanley said.
The six-tier model includes informed consent, a development interview, developmental screening, collateral information, summary and feedback and finally, specialist assessment.
Parts of the project are being implemented in Ipswich and Gold Coast, with the aim to eventually expand it across Queensland.
A federal Department of Health spokesperson said under the National Health Reform Agreement (NHRA), state and territory governments were responsible for providing eligible patients with services, including specialists, "within a clinically appropriate period".
The spokesperson said it had established a Health Workforce Taskforce in 2022 and completed an allied health data gap analysis to ensure the healthcare needs of Australians are met.
"The project [Yapatjarrathati] is funded to September 2024," it said.
"Any future funding, including expansion to other sites, is a decision for government."
