Isolated Patients Travel and Accommodation Scheme allocated $149.5 million in NSW budget

An extra $149.5 million has been allocated in the state government's budget to expand the Isolated Patients Travel and Accommodation Scheme (IPTAAS) which subsidises travel costs for regional patients.

For Tamworth parents Gareth Gardner and Sonya Sky the funding boost is more than just money, it's an opportunity to keep their family together.

The family has made countless trips to Newcastle and Sydney for specialist treatment for their two-year-old daughter Harper, who suffers from Tetralogy of Fallot and pulmonary atresia, a heart condition, along with eye disease, hearing loss, chronic lung disease and hip dysplasia.

With two other young children, Asher aged 4 and Maddison, Harper's twin sister, Mr Gardner said without assistance from IPTAAS and organisations like Ronald McDonald House (RMH), getting the care Harper needs would be extremely difficult.

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"I don't know how we would do it," he said.

"All the stuff we've had to do is not stuff that you plan for in life generally, you don't have finances sitting there for this stuff, it's not a common thing to worry about."

With the pregnancy deemed 'high risk', before Harper was born the family was travelling to Newcastle every two weeks for check ups and now make at least five trips to Sydney each year to see more than 20 health specialists.

Ms Sky said these trips are often met with a lot of worry about where they're going to stay, or how they'll get home.

"Right before we have to leave we're stressing out," she said.

"To find accommodation around Sydney close to the hospital is so expensive, so to know that it will actually be do-able takes the pressure off. We don't want to be thinking of these costs."

Nearly one thousand Tamworth residents access the scheme each year, with the city falling in the top five regions with the highest use of the funding. About 1800 people used IPTAAS last year, region-wide.

The expansion of the scheme will mean the subsidy for people requiring accommodation will be almost doubled, while the NSW Government will also nearly double the private vehicle subsidy rate from 22 cents to 40 cents per kilometre for patients who have to travel more than 100 kilometres for care.

The scheme will also be expanded to include patients seeking non-commercial clinical trials, high risk foot clinics, highly specialised publicly funded dental health clinics and ocularists to be eligible for assistance.

With Harper booked in for hip surgery in Sydney next month, the family expects to spend at least two weeks away from Tamworth, but assistance from IPTAAS and RMH means they'll stay together.

"I hate it when we're all apart it doesn't feel right," Ms Sky said.

"So to have us all together does cost more money, so having IPTAAS there definitely takes that stress off."

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