Women left waiting for share of $405m implant payout
Meant to assist women with prolapses and leakage, the flawed products routinely caused chronic pain, incontinence, and pain during sexual intercourse.
Device makers Johnson & Johnson, Ethicon and Boston Scientific agreed to pay $405 million in compensation in settlements approved by the Federal Court in late 2022 and early 2023.
But the court was told on Thursday 1020 women were yet to be assessed for compensation two years on.
Blame has been laid on difficulties obtaining the medical records necessary to complete the assessments.
"An enormous amount of work has been done, but there are stragglers," the administrators' lawyer Guy Donnellan told the court on Thursday.
Medical records for the women assessed come from various practices and are not connected to doctors who administered the vaginal mesh and tape implants, the court was told.
Since the settlements, just $25 million has been paid out to more than 6000 women deemed eligible by administrators, Mr Donnellan told Justice Michael Lee.
Women who receive this first interim payment will be eligible for further compensation in future.
About 15,000 women who received implants from Ethicon have been assessed with 1000 remaining, while some 20 of the 2698 women who received Boston Scientific implants were still waiting.
A small group of women have been deemed ineligible for compensation, he said.
Thursday's hearing incidentally came on International Mesh Awareness Day, recognising women and some men who were affected by the implants across decades.
Hundreds of South Australians injured by the implants were issued with a formal government apology on Wednesday night.
"I am sorry for the pain, embarrassment, and gaslighting you have endured," Health Minister Chris Picton said.
"For the times you questioned your own experiences and were dismissed by those who were meant to care for you."
Mr Picton said the government would continue to educate doctors and improve services for those seeking care to ensure it would not happen again.
The compensation pool is being administered by a trio of firms - BDO, JGA Saddler and Slater and Gordon.
Shine Lawyers ran the class actions, understood at the time to be the largest ever legal win of its type, but were prevented from managing the settlement distribution scheme.
When appointed in 2023, the settlement firms said they expected it could take 30 to 36 months to complete.
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Herald Sun
01-08-2025
- Herald Sun
Bulk billing doctors and GPs in SA, rising fees and costs
Don't miss out on the headlines from SA News. Followed categories will be added to My News. South Australians are being left up to $74 out of pocket to visit their GP, contradicting claims by Anthony Albanese that people would only need a Medicare card – not a credit card – to visit the doctor. It comes as the Australian Medical Association SA says the state should follow Queensland's lead and abolish payroll tax on GPs. A check of many Adelaide GP clinics by The Advertiser revealed a Medicare card can only get you so far, with nearly all metropolitan clinics only offering limited bulk-billing services to select groups of the community, such as veterans or children. Most are charging patients an out-of-pocket expense of $49 for a standard consultation, with prices broadly tied to suburbs. North Haven and Port Adelaide offered one of the cheapest gap fees at $35, while Glenelg had one of the highest at $68. Unley and its surrounding suburbs also had high gap fees, ranging from $61 and $74. Some centres had low gap fees such as $30 but then charged patients 'admin fees' between $5 and $10, while others had card payment surcharges on top of the fees. AMA SA president Peter Subramaniam said SA's payroll tax on GPs means patients here are paying more than those interstate. 'The payroll tax on GPs was abolished with bipartisan support in Queensland last year, because both major parties recognised it was costing patients more and costing the system more,' Associate Professor Subramaniam said. 'This isn't just a tax on doctors – it's a tax on access to healthcare. When patients can't afford to see their GP, they get sicker,' he said. 'That puts pressure on overcrowded emergency departments, adding to the stress and costs on the system.' According to the AMA, the cost of seeing a GP in South Australia has increased by roughly $10 per visit as a direct result of the payroll tax – a cost Queenslanders are now not paying. Prof Subramaniam's comments come as new figures show Australians paid more than $151m in June to visit their GP, highlighting the mountain the Prime Minister has to climb to fulfil his pledge. Following a week in which Mr Albanese stood in parliament and repeated his election campaign shtick of waving around his Medicare card, new data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare showed Australians have also paid more than $2.2bn out-of-pocket to see a doctor in the past year. Labor's election pledge to ramp up bulk-billing with an $8.5bn investment, which it says will enable an extra 18 million bulk-billed visits a year, is yet to start, with figures showing Australians continue to take a hit to the hip pocket. 'Anthony Albanese promised Australians that 'All you need is your Medicare card, not a credit card' and that it would be 'free to see a GP',' Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said. 'While he was waving around his Medicare card and misleading the public, Australians were forking out billions of dollars in out-of-pocket costs – presumably charged to their credit cards.' Health Minister Mark Butler said increased bulk-billing would begin in November. 'We know too many Australians are paying too much out of pocket when they go to the doctor because of the Liberals' cuts to Medicare,' he said. 'On November 1, we will expand bulk-billing incentives to all Australians and create an incentive payment for practices that bulk-bill every patient.' Mr Butler said the move would result in nine out of 10 GP visits being bulk-billed by 2030. Originally published as Rising GP fees leave SA patients out of pocket despite Anthony Albanese's Medicare claims Read related topics: Anthony Albanese
The Advertiser
26-07-2025
- The Advertiser
'They would withdraw care': cracks in NDIS costing Hunter families thousands
IT'S the system meant to offer them a safety net, but a funding crackdown is leaving some National Disability Insurance Scheme participants falling through the cracks. NDIS participants are being put at risk with lengthy delays and questionable decisions endangering the lives of those left without funded support and nowhere to go. Hospitals have become a last resort while families and service providers are being stranded with hefty bills into the tens of thousands of dollars. Industry insiders say that a broad-brush approach to a system-wide crackdown on NDIS spending is robbing those who genuinely rely on it. In two separate cases reported to the Newcastle Herald, people living with quadraplegia have had to rely on the goodwill of service providers for hands-on, life-sustaining care. Those service providers, and the families of those individuals, are paying out-of-pocket to ensure those supports remain in place. So far they have been unable to recover those costs due to what they describe as a combination of bureaucratic red tape, a lack of training and oversight, and the unavailability of NDIS staff with the experience, knowledge, or authority to address or escalate issues in a timely way. In the case of 52-year-old Jamie Phillips of Bolton Point, heavily reliant on his partner as well as funded supports, his NDIS journey has been difficult form the start. Karen Johnson, 58, works full-time as well as being Mr Phillips' full-time carer seven nights per week, starting at 4.30pm each day when she gets home from work. Night time care involves hoisting Mr Phillips out of bed and into a chair, onto a commode, in and out of the shower, into fresh clothes and hoisting him back onto the bed. He requires special boots, a CPAP machine, medications at 8pm and 11pm, and a catheter. She is preparing to purchase a $10,000 bed to enable her to sleep in the same room. "For three years he's been living in our loungeroom, he gets dressed there, he gets wheeled through the house naked to get showered, and wheeled back to go to bed," she said. Mr Phillips became a quadraplegic in 2022 after a botched medical procedure almost took his life, she said. He became an NDIS participant in December the same year. "Every plan we've had, we've had an issue with," Ms Johnson said. "It was underfunded or incorrectly funded, then last year his funding fell short. We had two agencies involved, both of them kept working for us without getting paid up until one who we paid because they said if we didn't pay they would withdraw their care." That was a bill for $21,000. The second company, which continued to provide services, has never been paid, she said, to the tune of about $15,000. "They just didn't get their money," Ms Johnson said. "This year Jamie got compensation for medical malpractice, so when we got the compensation, we had to pay back $1.9 million back to NDIS because that's the money they paid for him in the two years prior," she said. According to the civil court, compensation is calculated on the assumption that a quadraplegic has a life expectancy of eight years post-injury, but according to the NDIS it's about 22 years, Ms Johnson said. "So they took the $1.9 million and his funding will be cut down by around about $100,000 per year while he's alive, and so while we we're talking to them about that, that lady said she wasn't involved in the section where we could get our money back, and we've just never heard anything more about it." Mr Phillips has also lost out on occupational therapy due to NDIS-related cuts to allied health services impacting in-home care, Ms Johnson said. Jonathan Castellan, also a quadraplegic, was wheeled into the NDIS office at Charlestown earlier this month by support workers desperate to help him get the funding he needed. Already thousands of dollars out-of-pocket, it has been the dedication of those support workers that has kept Mr Castellan alive. "They didn't seem to understand how he couldn't spend a few days at home by himself," his sister, who did not wish to be named, told the Herald. Mr Castellan, 63, lives with quadraplegia following a spinal cord injury, as well as autism and dysphasia. He is catheterised and requires 24-hour care, but his sister said that due to an escalation in his care needs after a hospital stay, which meant he needed more support overnight, he ran out of funding. While the likelihood that he would run out of funding on that basis had been raised with the NDIS beforehand, delays meant his carers had no choice but to work without pay, she said. "You cannot ring the NDIS and speak to anyone who can actually do anything," an associated carer said. "They can't even escalate it and say to someone that we've got this major problem here - even if it was to release funding so we could continue caring for him until they can sort it out. "They don't read the reports. They will spend more money fighting the wheelchair than it would cost to buy the wheelchair." In both cases, family members and care teams considered hospitalisation as an option, but already hospitals are struggling with aged care and NDIS bedblock, and have pushed back. A spokesperson for the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), which governs the scheme, said the safety and welfare of NDIS participants was its "top priority". "While providers should be spending within a participant's funded support levels, the agency can prioritise requests for further funding, when there is a risk to a participant through a change in their circumstances," the spokesperson said. "In these cases, the NDIA will work closely with participants and review supporting evidence to ensure participant safety." It is understood the NDIA disputes the sequence of events as relayed by family members and support workers, and said that the required level of supporting evidence had not been submitted. Further, while the agency can prioritise requests for increased supports when there is a risk to a participant through a change in their circumstances, early exhaustion of plan funding does not automatically initiate a plan review or the approval of a new NDIS plan. The Herald has reported rising levels of aged care and NDIS bedblock, which has increased by more than 40 per cent across Hunter hospitals since March, further exacerbating the issue as hospitals battle to find enough beds and staff to man them. IT'S the system meant to offer them a safety net, but a funding crackdown is leaving some National Disability Insurance Scheme participants falling through the cracks. NDIS participants are being put at risk with lengthy delays and questionable decisions endangering the lives of those left without funded support and nowhere to go. Hospitals have become a last resort while families and service providers are being stranded with hefty bills into the tens of thousands of dollars. Industry insiders say that a broad-brush approach to a system-wide crackdown on NDIS spending is robbing those who genuinely rely on it. In two separate cases reported to the Newcastle Herald, people living with quadraplegia have had to rely on the goodwill of service providers for hands-on, life-sustaining care. Those service providers, and the families of those individuals, are paying out-of-pocket to ensure those supports remain in place. So far they have been unable to recover those costs due to what they describe as a combination of bureaucratic red tape, a lack of training and oversight, and the unavailability of NDIS staff with the experience, knowledge, or authority to address or escalate issues in a timely way. In the case of 52-year-old Jamie Phillips of Bolton Point, heavily reliant on his partner as well as funded supports, his NDIS journey has been difficult form the start. Karen Johnson, 58, works full-time as well as being Mr Phillips' full-time carer seven nights per week, starting at 4.30pm each day when she gets home from work. Night time care involves hoisting Mr Phillips out of bed and into a chair, onto a commode, in and out of the shower, into fresh clothes and hoisting him back onto the bed. He requires special boots, a CPAP machine, medications at 8pm and 11pm, and a catheter. She is preparing to purchase a $10,000 bed to enable her to sleep in the same room. "For three years he's been living in our loungeroom, he gets dressed there, he gets wheeled through the house naked to get showered, and wheeled back to go to bed," she said. Mr Phillips became a quadraplegic in 2022 after a botched medical procedure almost took his life, she said. He became an NDIS participant in December the same year. "Every plan we've had, we've had an issue with," Ms Johnson said. "It was underfunded or incorrectly funded, then last year his funding fell short. We had two agencies involved, both of them kept working for us without getting paid up until one who we paid because they said if we didn't pay they would withdraw their care." That was a bill for $21,000. The second company, which continued to provide services, has never been paid, she said, to the tune of about $15,000. "They just didn't get their money," Ms Johnson said. "This year Jamie got compensation for medical malpractice, so when we got the compensation, we had to pay back $1.9 million back to NDIS because that's the money they paid for him in the two years prior," she said. According to the civil court, compensation is calculated on the assumption that a quadraplegic has a life expectancy of eight years post-injury, but according to the NDIS it's about 22 years, Ms Johnson said. "So they took the $1.9 million and his funding will be cut down by around about $100,000 per year while he's alive, and so while we we're talking to them about that, that lady said she wasn't involved in the section where we could get our money back, and we've just never heard anything more about it." Mr Phillips has also lost out on occupational therapy due to NDIS-related cuts to allied health services impacting in-home care, Ms Johnson said. Jonathan Castellan, also a quadraplegic, was wheeled into the NDIS office at Charlestown earlier this month by support workers desperate to help him get the funding he needed. Already thousands of dollars out-of-pocket, it has been the dedication of those support workers that has kept Mr Castellan alive. "They didn't seem to understand how he couldn't spend a few days at home by himself," his sister, who did not wish to be named, told the Herald. Mr Castellan, 63, lives with quadraplegia following a spinal cord injury, as well as autism and dysphasia. He is catheterised and requires 24-hour care, but his sister said that due to an escalation in his care needs after a hospital stay, which meant he needed more support overnight, he ran out of funding. While the likelihood that he would run out of funding on that basis had been raised with the NDIS beforehand, delays meant his carers had no choice but to work without pay, she said. "You cannot ring the NDIS and speak to anyone who can actually do anything," an associated carer said. "They can't even escalate it and say to someone that we've got this major problem here - even if it was to release funding so we could continue caring for him until they can sort it out. "They don't read the reports. They will spend more money fighting the wheelchair than it would cost to buy the wheelchair." In both cases, family members and care teams considered hospitalisation as an option, but already hospitals are struggling with aged care and NDIS bedblock, and have pushed back. A spokesperson for the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), which governs the scheme, said the safety and welfare of NDIS participants was its "top priority". "While providers should be spending within a participant's funded support levels, the agency can prioritise requests for further funding, when there is a risk to a participant through a change in their circumstances," the spokesperson said. "In these cases, the NDIA will work closely with participants and review supporting evidence to ensure participant safety." It is understood the NDIA disputes the sequence of events as relayed by family members and support workers, and said that the required level of supporting evidence had not been submitted. Further, while the agency can prioritise requests for increased supports when there is a risk to a participant through a change in their circumstances, early exhaustion of plan funding does not automatically initiate a plan review or the approval of a new NDIS plan. The Herald has reported rising levels of aged care and NDIS bedblock, which has increased by more than 40 per cent across Hunter hospitals since March, further exacerbating the issue as hospitals battle to find enough beds and staff to man them. IT'S the system meant to offer them a safety net, but a funding crackdown is leaving some National Disability Insurance Scheme participants falling through the cracks. NDIS participants are being put at risk with lengthy delays and questionable decisions endangering the lives of those left without funded support and nowhere to go. Hospitals have become a last resort while families and service providers are being stranded with hefty bills into the tens of thousands of dollars. Industry insiders say that a broad-brush approach to a system-wide crackdown on NDIS spending is robbing those who genuinely rely on it. In two separate cases reported to the Newcastle Herald, people living with quadraplegia have had to rely on the goodwill of service providers for hands-on, life-sustaining care. Those service providers, and the families of those individuals, are paying out-of-pocket to ensure those supports remain in place. So far they have been unable to recover those costs due to what they describe as a combination of bureaucratic red tape, a lack of training and oversight, and the unavailability of NDIS staff with the experience, knowledge, or authority to address or escalate issues in a timely way. In the case of 52-year-old Jamie Phillips of Bolton Point, heavily reliant on his partner as well as funded supports, his NDIS journey has been difficult form the start. Karen Johnson, 58, works full-time as well as being Mr Phillips' full-time carer seven nights per week, starting at 4.30pm each day when she gets home from work. Night time care involves hoisting Mr Phillips out of bed and into a chair, onto a commode, in and out of the shower, into fresh clothes and hoisting him back onto the bed. He requires special boots, a CPAP machine, medications at 8pm and 11pm, and a catheter. She is preparing to purchase a $10,000 bed to enable her to sleep in the same room. "For three years he's been living in our loungeroom, he gets dressed there, he gets wheeled through the house naked to get showered, and wheeled back to go to bed," she said. Mr Phillips became a quadraplegic in 2022 after a botched medical procedure almost took his life, she said. He became an NDIS participant in December the same year. "Every plan we've had, we've had an issue with," Ms Johnson said. "It was underfunded or incorrectly funded, then last year his funding fell short. We had two agencies involved, both of them kept working for us without getting paid up until one who we paid because they said if we didn't pay they would withdraw their care." That was a bill for $21,000. The second company, which continued to provide services, has never been paid, she said, to the tune of about $15,000. "They just didn't get their money," Ms Johnson said. "This year Jamie got compensation for medical malpractice, so when we got the compensation, we had to pay back $1.9 million back to NDIS because that's the money they paid for him in the two years prior," she said. According to the civil court, compensation is calculated on the assumption that a quadraplegic has a life expectancy of eight years post-injury, but according to the NDIS it's about 22 years, Ms Johnson said. "So they took the $1.9 million and his funding will be cut down by around about $100,000 per year while he's alive, and so while we we're talking to them about that, that lady said she wasn't involved in the section where we could get our money back, and we've just never heard anything more about it." Mr Phillips has also lost out on occupational therapy due to NDIS-related cuts to allied health services impacting in-home care, Ms Johnson said. Jonathan Castellan, also a quadraplegic, was wheeled into the NDIS office at Charlestown earlier this month by support workers desperate to help him get the funding he needed. Already thousands of dollars out-of-pocket, it has been the dedication of those support workers that has kept Mr Castellan alive. "They didn't seem to understand how he couldn't spend a few days at home by himself," his sister, who did not wish to be named, told the Herald. Mr Castellan, 63, lives with quadraplegia following a spinal cord injury, as well as autism and dysphasia. He is catheterised and requires 24-hour care, but his sister said that due to an escalation in his care needs after a hospital stay, which meant he needed more support overnight, he ran out of funding. While the likelihood that he would run out of funding on that basis had been raised with the NDIS beforehand, delays meant his carers had no choice but to work without pay, she said. "You cannot ring the NDIS and speak to anyone who can actually do anything," an associated carer said. "They can't even escalate it and say to someone that we've got this major problem here - even if it was to release funding so we could continue caring for him until they can sort it out. "They don't read the reports. They will spend more money fighting the wheelchair than it would cost to buy the wheelchair." In both cases, family members and care teams considered hospitalisation as an option, but already hospitals are struggling with aged care and NDIS bedblock, and have pushed back. A spokesperson for the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), which governs the scheme, said the safety and welfare of NDIS participants was its "top priority". "While providers should be spending within a participant's funded support levels, the agency can prioritise requests for further funding, when there is a risk to a participant through a change in their circumstances," the spokesperson said. "In these cases, the NDIA will work closely with participants and review supporting evidence to ensure participant safety." It is understood the NDIA disputes the sequence of events as relayed by family members and support workers, and said that the required level of supporting evidence had not been submitted. Further, while the agency can prioritise requests for increased supports when there is a risk to a participant through a change in their circumstances, early exhaustion of plan funding does not automatically initiate a plan review or the approval of a new NDIS plan. The Herald has reported rising levels of aged care and NDIS bedblock, which has increased by more than 40 per cent across Hunter hospitals since March, further exacerbating the issue as hospitals battle to find enough beds and staff to man them. IT'S the system meant to offer them a safety net, but a funding crackdown is leaving some National Disability Insurance Scheme participants falling through the cracks. NDIS participants are being put at risk with lengthy delays and questionable decisions endangering the lives of those left without funded support and nowhere to go. Hospitals have become a last resort while families and service providers are being stranded with hefty bills into the tens of thousands of dollars. Industry insiders say that a broad-brush approach to a system-wide crackdown on NDIS spending is robbing those who genuinely rely on it. In two separate cases reported to the Newcastle Herald, people living with quadraplegia have had to rely on the goodwill of service providers for hands-on, life-sustaining care. Those service providers, and the families of those individuals, are paying out-of-pocket to ensure those supports remain in place. So far they have been unable to recover those costs due to what they describe as a combination of bureaucratic red tape, a lack of training and oversight, and the unavailability of NDIS staff with the experience, knowledge, or authority to address or escalate issues in a timely way. In the case of 52-year-old Jamie Phillips of Bolton Point, heavily reliant on his partner as well as funded supports, his NDIS journey has been difficult form the start. Karen Johnson, 58, works full-time as well as being Mr Phillips' full-time carer seven nights per week, starting at 4.30pm each day when she gets home from work. Night time care involves hoisting Mr Phillips out of bed and into a chair, onto a commode, in and out of the shower, into fresh clothes and hoisting him back onto the bed. He requires special boots, a CPAP machine, medications at 8pm and 11pm, and a catheter. She is preparing to purchase a $10,000 bed to enable her to sleep in the same room. "For three years he's been living in our loungeroom, he gets dressed there, he gets wheeled through the house naked to get showered, and wheeled back to go to bed," she said. Mr Phillips became a quadraplegic in 2022 after a botched medical procedure almost took his life, she said. He became an NDIS participant in December the same year. "Every plan we've had, we've had an issue with," Ms Johnson said. "It was underfunded or incorrectly funded, then last year his funding fell short. We had two agencies involved, both of them kept working for us without getting paid up until one who we paid because they said if we didn't pay they would withdraw their care." That was a bill for $21,000. The second company, which continued to provide services, has never been paid, she said, to the tune of about $15,000. "They just didn't get their money," Ms Johnson said. "This year Jamie got compensation for medical malpractice, so when we got the compensation, we had to pay back $1.9 million back to NDIS because that's the money they paid for him in the two years prior," she said. According to the civil court, compensation is calculated on the assumption that a quadraplegic has a life expectancy of eight years post-injury, but according to the NDIS it's about 22 years, Ms Johnson said. "So they took the $1.9 million and his funding will be cut down by around about $100,000 per year while he's alive, and so while we we're talking to them about that, that lady said she wasn't involved in the section where we could get our money back, and we've just never heard anything more about it." Mr Phillips has also lost out on occupational therapy due to NDIS-related cuts to allied health services impacting in-home care, Ms Johnson said. Jonathan Castellan, also a quadraplegic, was wheeled into the NDIS office at Charlestown earlier this month by support workers desperate to help him get the funding he needed. Already thousands of dollars out-of-pocket, it has been the dedication of those support workers that has kept Mr Castellan alive. "They didn't seem to understand how he couldn't spend a few days at home by himself," his sister, who did not wish to be named, told the Herald. Mr Castellan, 63, lives with quadraplegia following a spinal cord injury, as well as autism and dysphasia. He is catheterised and requires 24-hour care, but his sister said that due to an escalation in his care needs after a hospital stay, which meant he needed more support overnight, he ran out of funding. While the likelihood that he would run out of funding on that basis had been raised with the NDIS beforehand, delays meant his carers had no choice but to work without pay, she said. "You cannot ring the NDIS and speak to anyone who can actually do anything," an associated carer said. "They can't even escalate it and say to someone that we've got this major problem here - even if it was to release funding so we could continue caring for him until they can sort it out. "They don't read the reports. They will spend more money fighting the wheelchair than it would cost to buy the wheelchair." In both cases, family members and care teams considered hospitalisation as an option, but already hospitals are struggling with aged care and NDIS bedblock, and have pushed back. A spokesperson for the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), which governs the scheme, said the safety and welfare of NDIS participants was its "top priority". "While providers should be spending within a participant's funded support levels, the agency can prioritise requests for further funding, when there is a risk to a participant through a change in their circumstances," the spokesperson said. "In these cases, the NDIA will work closely with participants and review supporting evidence to ensure participant safety." It is understood the NDIA disputes the sequence of events as relayed by family members and support workers, and said that the required level of supporting evidence had not been submitted. Further, while the agency can prioritise requests for increased supports when there is a risk to a participant through a change in their circumstances, early exhaustion of plan funding does not automatically initiate a plan review or the approval of a new NDIS plan. The Herald has reported rising levels of aged care and NDIS bedblock, which has increased by more than 40 per cent across Hunter hospitals since March, further exacerbating the issue as hospitals battle to find enough beds and staff to man them.
7NEWS
21-07-2025
- 7NEWS
Millions for South Australian toxic algae event that has plagued coastlines for months
'Nothing can be done' to dilute or dissipate an algae bloom that is devastating marine life across formerly pristine South Australian coastlines, the state's residents and hard-hit fishing industry are being told by the Department of Environment and Water. Three contributing causes have now been identified for the bloom which has been choking large parts of South Australia's coast for more than three months, as authorities scramble to maintain confidence in their handling of what is being called an 'environmental catastrophe'. Federal Minister for the Environment Murray Watt on Monday promised $14 million to deal with the algae event, but did not specifically mention if it was one-off disaster funding. 'It's obviously a very distressing event for all South Australians and, I think, the whole country,' he said. 'There's no doubting whatsoever that this is a very serious environmental event facing South Australia.' The funding is expected to be spent on beach clean-ups across SA coastlines, scientific research, business assistance, communication and planning to mitigate future blooms. The combined effects of river floods, a cold water upswell and now warmer than average water temperatures — which have created the conditions in which the algae thrives — are not easily combated, the South Australian government's Department for Environment and Water (DEW) has said. Since March when surfers first began falling sick after riding the waves at Goolwa on the Fleurieu Peninsula, the toxic karenia mikimotoi algae has spread along the coastline to Adelaide and around the otherside of the Yorke Peninsula, like Port Broughton — about 250km north of where it was first detected. The algae bloom — now estimated to be about 4,500sqkm in size — has killed thousands of fish and other marine life, with regular reports of rotten carcasses washing up on beaches. DEW said nutrients washed downstream during the River Murray floods and deep-sea nutrients pushed into shallow waters during a cold water upswell have caused a mass feeding ground rich in nitrate and other micro-plankton — meaning there is plenty of food for all sorts of marine life, including various algae species. These factors alone would normally mean a nutrient-rich season for ocean-based primary producers such as fishermen and oyster and muscle farmers. But they were soon followed by warmer than average water temperatures causing conditions perfect for the algae to develop faster and overwhelm other marine life, with the micro-plankton karenia mikimotoi outbreak quickly taking root — and both eating up the other micro-plankton other species rely on, while being consumed spreading its toxins that can kill other forms of sea life and make humans sick. South Australia's struggling seafood industry is still holding its breath for the bloom to dissipate, while residents and visitors to the area have been advised to avoid swimming at algae-affected beaches. Local fisherman and Coorong Wild Seafood owner Glen Hil said the situation could devastate the region's fishing industry. 'I've bashed my head against the side of the chiller in frustration. I've cried my eyes out,' Hill told 7NEWS. 'If we lose the bottom of the food chain, what do the fish eat? Potentially, we could lose everything.' And it's having a knock-on effect across the wider industry, with reports seafood sales are plummeting as consumers question where the produce has come from, while several oyster and muscle-producing sites have been shut down. It's not the first time South Australia has had to contend with a karenia mikimotoi outbreak, with a previous bloom recorded in Coffin Bay in 2014 according to DEW. Karenia mikimotoi can be found worldwide, including Northern America, with many types of harmful algae blooms becoming more frequent due to climate change. Coorong Environmental Trust co-founder Faith Coleman has told 7NEWS: 'Human beings are part of our ecosystems but if we get the balance wrong in the environment all of it will fall over. 'And so, when there are community members who are distressed and we are seeing really clear signatures of climate change … it's important that we get onto it very, very quickly.' Marine heatwave While South Australia was dealing with a drought, the ocean was also being affected by the weather with 'sea temperatures about 2.5C warmer than usual combined with calm conditions, light winds and small swells,' according to SA Water. In Australia, often warmer waters on the eastern coast can be seen as colour bleaching on coral reefs. But according to the Australian Research Council (ARC), the impact of m arine heatwaves can also include 'harmful algal blooms, coral bleaching and organism mortalities'. ARC said marine heatwaves can occur in any ocean region and during any season. But what exactly causes a marine heatwave? ARC said there are key factors that may trigger a marine heatwave, with the 'atmospheric' issues such as sunlight being a big factor — when there is minimal cloud cover, the ocean water warms up more. Wind also plays a factor in cooling the water surface so with less wind the water stays warmer. According to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), sea surface temperatures (SST) around Australia during May 2025 were 0.62C above the 1991–2020 average, making it the warmest May on record since observations began in 1900. Since July 2024, SSTs have been the warmest or second warmest on record for each respective month. River Murray floods Unprecedented flooding on the Australian east coast caused a massive knock-on effect, not only for those at the top of the Murray Darling Basin but at the bottom in South Australia. On the average day, 15 gigalitres of water — or 6000 Olympic-sized swimming pools — is expected to pass through monitoring stations in SA's Riverland region. However, as the Murray Darling Basin flooded, a peak of 186 gigalitres — or 74,400 Olympic-sized swimming pools — was pouring into the River Murray daily and countless acres of farmland, homes and shacks were inundated by the 'once in a generation' flooding event. SA Water has acknowledged the flooding did flush 'nutrients' into the Murray mouth and surrounding beaches. Beaches around where the Murray meets the ocean mouth turned brown for months, with farm machinery brought in to clear a massive fish kill as tons of immature carp were flushed out to sea. Unprecedented cold-water upwelling Upwelling is an oceanographic phenomenon that involves wind-driven motion of dense, cooler, and usually nutrient-rich water from deep water towards the ocean surface, according to Jochen Kaempf, an Associate Professor of Natural Sciences (Oceanography) at Flinders University. Sunlight does not reach far into the sea, so the upwelling ensures that microscopic phytoplankton — single-celled organisms that depend on photosynthesis to thrive, are able so do so as the currents of the water bring them to shallower waters. It usually is celebrated by fishing industries as phytoplankton attracts deep sea creatures such as tuna and whales which feed on it. A government spokesperson told the current algal bloom is being sustained by 'nitrogen, phosphorous and carbon nutrients' most likely created through 'ocean upwelling, river and storm water runoff, dust, dying seagrass, fish and flows from rivers and storm water'. Waters deeper than 100m also contain high levels of nitrogen, while the deep zone of high nutrient levels is also due to the presence of bacteria that decompose sinking particles of dead organic matter. Karenia mikimotoi feed on the same microscopic phytoplankton as well as being able to survive via photosynthesis, which is why it is proving resistant. South Australian government response Government agencies, including the Department for Environment and Water (DEW), the Environment Protection Authority (EPA), the Department of Primary Industries and Regions (PIRSA) and SA Health are monitoring the karenia mikimotoi bloom. The agencies are taking weekly water samples at 17 sites across West Lakes, the Port River, the Patawalonga River and the end of four jetties at Largs Bay, Grange, Glenelg and Port Noarlunga. The Port River is home to the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary, whose dolphins and their water quality are monitored regularly by National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), and Flinders University in collaboration with the Environment Protection Authority. Weekly testing of the Coorong will be undertaken to analyse the algal bloom's movement. The Coorong region remains open and visitors are advised to check signage and avoid contact with discoloured water, foamy water, or water where marine life is dead or in poor health. The state Liberal Opposition want a royal commission into the algae bloom, but the SA government stopped it dead in its tracks. Attorney-General Kyam Maher poured scorn on the proposal, suggesting it was a waste of money to investigate what was 'almost universally accepted by scientists to be caused by climate change'. 'We've already announced half a million dollars in fee relief for the fishing industry and we've said we're looking at doing more,' he said. The state government announced a $500,000 initial relief package for fishers affected by the algal bloom, waiving certain licence and audit fees. A government spokesperson said there will be no ban on recreational and commercial fishers 'At present there are no plans to close fishing areas as a direct result of the harmful algal bloom,' the spokesperson told Acting Premier and Environment Minister Susan Close has repeatedly said she was deeply concerned for sensitive areas such as the Coorong, and there are 'things than can be done'. 'We're looking at ways in which we can manage water in order to push the Coorong's salinity out of the comfort zone for karenia mikimotoi,' she said. Close said the state government recognises the widespread effects of the algal bloom on the environment, coastline, businesses and industries, adding the government has established a reference group to work with those people who are on the frontline of the algae bloom. 'The algal bloom is a dynamic situation and its effects are unpredictable but, by bringing together industry representatives and science specialists, we can continue looking at research and investment options,' she said.
