Women’s health and wellbeing

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The NSW Government has made significant investments in a range of initiatives aimed at holistically supporting women’s health and wellbeing.

Women’s health

Funding and initiatives include:

• $42 million over four years to improve access to IVF services across New South Wales. 
• $17 million over two years to pilot in-home care for pregnant women with hyperemesis gravidarum (severe morning sickness).  
• $12.2 million boost for new parents in rural and regional New South Wales, including six new Regional Family Care Centres and five Tresillian mobile vans. 
• More than $11 million in funding for 20 Women’s Health Centres across New South Wales (which provide a woman-centred approach to primary health care) and Women’s Health NSW (which supports the Women’s Health Centres) to effectively support women’s health and wellbeing. 
• $10.2 million over four years to fund Tresillian and Karitane to extend access to virtual residential parenting services, and more than $1.4 million to enable Tresillian to provide free access to its SleepWellBaby app during the COVID-19 pandemic. 
• $3.2 million for the Mums and Kids Matter program to provide services for mothers with mental health problems and their children aged 0–5. 
• $1.1 million for the Get Healthy in Pregnancy phone coaching service to promote healthy behaviour changes in pregnant women. 
• Jointly funding and managing BreastScreen NSW, which offers free mammogram screening to women aged 50–74 in order to improve survival rates of women with breast cancer

Affordable IVF

Since November 2019, under the NSW Government’s Affordable IVF Initiative: 

• more than 10,000 women have received the $500 Pre-IVF fertility testing rebate to support their fertility treatment¹⁶¹
• more than 3,000 women have received IVF treatment at one of the three publicly supported fertility clinics, including the provision of more than 6,000 IVF treatment cycles 
• more than 200 patients have received fertility preservation treatment at the Royal Hospital for Women, providing young cancer patients the choice to have biological children in the future. 

Miscarriage and pre-term birth leave 

In 2021, the NSW Government was the first state to introduce paid miscarriage and pre-term birth leave for public sector employees.

Under the policy, public sector workers are entitled to five days paid miscarriage leave per occasion as well as additional paid parental leave entitlements where an employee gives birth to a pre-term child. 

Women in sport

The NSW Government provided more than $2.5 million over four years for the Her Sport Her Way Grants Program aimed at increasing girls and women’s participation in the sport sector.

The program has supported 29 initiatives to boost participation as players, leaders and coaches, improve facilities, and attract more investment and recognition for women’s sport.

In January 2021, the NSW Government also announced that up to $50 million from the Stronger Country Communities Fund would be used to deliver and improve women’s sports facilities to boost female participation in sports across regional New South Wales¹⁶².

Several projects aimed at improving women’s participation have also received funding under the Greater Cities Sport Facility Fund and the Regional Sport Facility Fund.

For example, Blacktown City Football Club has received funding to develop female-friendly change rooms, while the Upper Lachlan Shire Council has received funding to upgrade amenities at Lin Cooper Field to make them more inclusive and to improve women’s participation in sport¹⁶³.

Aboriginal Child and Family Centres

In 2014, the NSW Government established the Aboriginal Child and Family Centres (ACFC) program to provide holistic, culturally safe services for First Nations families.

These purpose-built, place-based centres offer a range of services for First Nations children and their families, including early childhood education, parent and family support, maternal and child health, and adult education.

Services are tailored to the local needs of families and offer a mix of activities, purpose-built for co-located childhood and family support.  

In 2021, an evaluation of the program found that ACFCs are providing high-quality and cost-effective early childhood education to First Nations children in a safe, trusted and culturally safe environment.

The ACFCs are community-controlled organisations and operate as a community hub through referrals to deliver and coordinate integrated, culturally appropriate and needs-based services.

This is improving outcomes for First Nations families across the Human Services Outcome Framework, particularly in education, health, social and community empowerment.