More help will be given to millions of Australians battling the devastating impacts of coronavirus with a $1.1 billion package which boosts mental health services, domestic violence support, Medicare assistance for people at home and emergency food relief.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said today that more support would be rolling out immediately to deal with the secondary effects of the health and economic crisis caused by coronavirus.
“As we battle coronavirus on both the health and economic fronts with significant support packages in place and more to come, I am very aware many Australians are understandably anxious, stressed and fearful about the impacts of coronavirus and what it brings,” the Prime Minister said.
“We are focused on saving lives and saving livelihoods and this new support package will provide much needed care and help to so many Australians facing hardship at no fault of their own.
“We will get through this crisis by staying together, by supporting each other and ensuring that no Australian, even though we have to be isolated, should have to go through this alone.”
To provide continued access to essential primary health services during the coronavirus pandemic, $669 million will be provided to expand Medicare – subsidised telehealth services for all Australians, with extra incentives to GPs and other health practitioners also delivered.
An initial $150 million will be provided to support Australians experiencing domestic, family and sexual violence due to the fallout from coronavirus.
Google is seeing the highest magnitude of searches for domestic violence help that they have seen in the past five years with an increase of 75 per cent and some services are already reporting an increase in demand.
An initial $74 million will be provided to support the mental health and wellbeing of all Australians and an additional $200 million will be provided to support charities and other community organisations which provide emergency and food relief as demand surges as a result of coronavirus.
At a press conference today Mr Morrison said that the increase in cases was down to 13-15 per cent a day down from 25-30 per cent which it was just a week ago.
See the full press conference below:
#LIVE: Update on the coronavirus response.
Posted by Scott Morrison (ScoMo) on Saturday, 28 March 2020
