Australia prides itself on its universal healthcare system. But publicly funded health organisations across the country are able to opt out of providing services such as basic reproductive healthcare and voluntary assisted dying, creating significant barriers to access for patients.
Despite receiving state or federal funding, institutions may object to providing such services on religious or other grounds, with individual clinicians unable, or forced to develop workarounds, to provide patients with required care.
Depending on where someone lives, the catchment area they fall into may mean that their only local public hospital or health service is run by a religious institution, creating what health workers have described as a “postcode lottery” for access to services.
