00:00Enrique Thomas suffered with rheumatic heart disease for nearly seven years before being
00:06formally diagnosed.
00:07I was in and out of hospitals since I was about seven, eight years old and the doctors
00:13really didn't know what was going on.
00:15They first believed that it was an electrical fault within the heart.
00:20He was finally diagnosed at 14 and now works with the Deadly Heart Trek, an initiative
00:25working to eliminate rheumatic heart disease in remote Australia.
00:28We have to have penicillin needles every month, so for me it's every three weeks, so we end
00:36up having around about 13, 14 needles every year.
00:41But the type of penicillin he needs, a drug commonly known as Bicillin, is increasingly
00:45hard to come by.
00:47In July this year, Australia's supply, marketed under the brand name Extensilin and subsidised
00:52under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, was exhausted.
00:55People don't realise that rheumatic heart disease in Australia, we have some of the
00:59highest rates.
01:01And these kids that get diagnosed, because it's really mostly young people, and it's
01:05predominantly females, they need their Bicillin.
01:08In the weeks since Extensilin ran out, no alternative brands have been subsidised under the PBS, leaving
01:13clinicians in short supply of the life-saving medication.
01:16Now, clinicians here in the NT say the alternatives they do have are powder-based, they're prone
01:21to blocking up in syringes, and can be extremely painful for the children who have to receive
01:25them.
01:26On the front lines, clinicians are calling for a solution, which could include further PBS
01:31listings, or the drugs manufacture in Australia.
01:34We can deliver these fancy, expensive treatments like chemotherapy and so on, many, many very
01:40expensive medication, and the most basic and the cheapest medication will be run out of.
01:45And why is that?
01:47Because this formulation of penicillin is used in disadvantaged populations across the world.
01:53On top of the health implications, they say a shortage undoes the important messaging
01:57of organisations like the Deadly Heart Trek.
02:00It sends the message that maybe this medicine is not important, if the entire country doesn't
02:05have any, if the country of Australia is not responsible to deliver the basic, cheap medication
02:11that is required.
02:13It sends the message that maybe we don't matter.
02:16A disease of the past, plaguing the future of Australia's most marginalised communities.
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