Dr. Deirdre Duffy:

It is worth pointing out that service providers reinforce this wholeheartedly, for all of the reasons the Senator has mentioned but also because of the operational and logistical delays that happen as an ordinary part of referral between different parts of the health system. That system does not operate on a 365-day basis and there will be a natural operational lag between appointments, for example, or a gestational scan, if required. If the gestation is unclear and a provider in community care requests a gestational scan, then the person needs to travel to a hospital and so on. All of these little impediments can lead to delays and including a mandatory element to that is compounding an existing problem. Someone can very easily time out of care.